Author Q&A With Adam Aresty
Adam Aresty has written the novellas The Communication Room and Recovery, the horror film Stung, the TV series ALT, and the script for the video game Enshrouded, among other works of genre fiction. Skyboy is his first novel. He teaches screenwriting at Fordham University and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Meet Adam…
You are an author, but is it your day job? If not, what does fill your days? I am also a professor at Fordham University here in New York City. I teach several courses, but the one I focus most on is called “Writing The Genre Screenplay: Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy.”
Did you always want to be an author? I’ve always wanted to write, but I focused mainly on screenplays for most of my career. Skyboy is my first novel, though I’ve had some short fiction published along the way.
What is your most recent book, and what inspired you to write it? Skyboy was inspired by a question: who builds the future? We see the worlds of The Fifth Element, Blade Runner , and even The Jetsons, yet we never meet the 
architects of those worlds. I wanted to fill in the blank there.
How do you hope your book uplifts those who read it? The main lesson Konstant, my hero, learns is that collaboration is the key to success. I hope readers of all ages who pick up a copy consider this in their own lives. I don’t believe that going it alone is sustainable, and especially in the uncertain times we’re living in, it’s so important to work together.
What are you most excited about with this book? Getting it into the hands of readers who like sci-fi worlds and breathtaking action sequences!
What advice would you give to someone wanting to succeed in your professional industry? Prepare to fail—countless times—and prepare to learn from those failures.
How do you handle setbacks and criticism? Setbacks can be learning experiences, and I try to take the “when one door closes another door opens” approach to these, though this can be a challenge in its own right… Criticism I have learned to love—someone has taken the time to dislike (or even hate) my work, and then put in the effort to express it in writing or maybe even to my face? I should be so lucky.
How do you hold yourself accountable and achieve the goals that you set forth? I live for deadlines. I’ll set them for myself if they’re not set for me. And I’d say I have a pretty good track record for meeting them.
How do you structure your day and make time for writing? The great TV writer Jane Espenson taught me (via her Twitter account) about what she calls “Writing Sprints” where you do focused work for 1 hour (phone on silent, wifi off in some cases) and then, at the end of the hour, you take a break—have a snack, walk the dog, etc. I can usually do 3 or 4 productive “sprints” in a day, and the breaks help reduce burnout.
What do you find most fulfilling in the career that you’ve chosen? Every project is a puzzle that requires different skills to solve. I love that my stories keep me on my toes and sharpen the tools in my toolbox every day I sit down to write.
What book uplifts you? Stephen King is one of my heroes, and his book On Writing is a constant source of inspiration.
Meet Adam and grab a copy of his new book via his website.
