Trina's Tantilising Tidbits: Featured Interview & Special Giveaway With Scott Prussing

Wednesday, 20 August 2014

Featured Interview & Special Giveaway With Scott Prussing - Author of The Blue Fire Saga

We have Scott with us today all the way from San Diego

Hi Scott

Tell us a little about yourself.

I was born in New Jersey, but was smart enough to move to beautiful San Diego, California as soon as I received my Master's degree in psychology from Yale University.

I’ve written six paranormal romance books in my critically acclaimed Blue Fire Saga, plus three spinoffs. I’m also the author of the mystery/suspense novels Unturned Stones and Tangled Webs, the fantasy/adventure Dreams of the Last Born, and the teen romance Mine: A Love Story. I recently penned four XXX rated erotica books, (Letting Go, Landing Hard, Opening Up and Delving Deeper), under the pen name S. T. Prussing. My most recent novel is Anomaly, a post-apocalyptic fantasy.

Besides writing, I enjoy riding my bicycle at the beach, going to the movies, reading, hiking and golf. I’m one of the few people in the United States without a cell phone.

I love to interact with my fans and have placed many of them in my books as characters.

How did you become a writer, and did you always want to write?

I’m not sure what “becoming a writer” means, but I know exactly when I started. Thiry years or so ago, I read an article in the newspaper about a 13 year old kid who was writing a Lord of the Rings type epic fantasy. (LOTR is my all-time favourite book.) I thought to myself “I can do that.” So I did. Even though I’d never taken any creative writing classes in college or elsewhere, I sat down and began writing what was basically an 800 page LOTR rip off. It never went anywhere.

Next, I wrote Unturned Stones, a mystery suspense novel. This was back in the mid 1980’s, when publishing was very different than it is today. There was no such thing as self-publishing, and there were no ebooks, either. You had to get an agent, which I did, and then you had to get picked up by a publisher, which I didn’t. So I stopped writing for about twenty years.

Six years ago, I had an opportunity to take early retirement from a career in Health Education, so I grabbed it. With plenty of free time, I decided to try my hand at writing again. I wrote Breathless, a paranormal romance in the Twilight vein. The few people who bought it in the early days loved it and kept asking if there was going to be a sequel. I’d tell them I didn’t know – it depended on whether I sold enough copies to make it worthwhile. Well, since there are now 6 novels in the series plus 3 spinoffs, I guess you could say it sold well enough.

How do you hope your readers react to the stories you write?

I hope they enjoy them enough to want to read them again and to share them with their booklover friends. And I want to leave them wanting MORE!

What responses to your writing have affected you the most and why?

The “author love” I got from some of my earliest (and still best) fans was awesome. I was an older guy, writing in what was (and is) mostly a young woman’s genre (paranormal romance). My first book, Breathless, was available only in hardback, which made it relatively expensive. (Ebooks had not yet become popular.) I had no advertising budget. Yet somehow, those fans found me, basically through Facebook. They purchased my book and helped spread the word. I’m forever grateful.

Other than writing great stories, what other goals do you have for your life?

I just turned sixty-one, so basically, I want to live a fun, relaxed, relatively stress free life as I approach my “golden years.” J

What do you like to do in your spare time?

Reading, hiking, biking, movies, museums, online poker, interact with fans on Facebook and Twitter.

What can you tell us about your latest works?

My two most recent works are VERY different. One is a post-apocalyptic fantasy novel called Anomaly that I published at the end of April. The other is an XXX-rated erotica novella titled Delving Deeper, which is the 4th instalment of my Letting Go series. I released it at the end of May.

What stories can your fans expect from you in the days ahead?

I’ve recently started fooling around with a seventh Blue Fire Saga novel. It’s been interesting so far, because I’ve had ideas for four early chapters and I’ve been bouncing back and forth between them, writing whatever little business comes to mind each day. The book will be called Relentless.

What would you like to say to your fans in New Zealand and others worldwide?

My message would be to my fans AND to fans of other writers. I’d say that if you love to read, do what you can to support the authors you enjoy. Write reviews, help them promote, tell your reading friends about them. It’s a difficult path that writers have chosen, and you can definitely help them.