365 Interviews

Interview 9: seanarturo

1. Can you tell me about yourself?
Well, I'm a 24 year old who has lived all my life in Los Angeles. I am technically a university student, but I've taken a leave of absence for now to focus on my writing. I enjoy many things other than just writing, like: boxing, video games, television shows/movies, music, friends, sports, and cars. I work as an EMT and I am double majoring in English and Biology.

2. What inspired you to write?
 I think I've always been a writer. I always thought up stories in my head during long drives as a child, but I never actually thought about writing any of it down. One day I was just in an odd state of mind, and I decided to write down the first thing that popped into my head. After I was done, I though, "Hey, yeah. I can actually do this thing."

3. Is writing a hobby or career to you?
 It started as a hobby and its definitely not a career yet, but if I have it my way, I'll be published soon and be ale to make a serious career out of it!

4. Do you want your stories to be published one day?
Yes, definitely. But not someday. Lets go with today!

5. What do you do when you aren't writing?
Work, plan stories, hang with friends, watch tv, eat, sleep, work out, the usual.

6. If you could spend the day with one of your characters who would it be and what would you do?
  I would have to go with Wesley Holter from Our Autumn Fire. He's just such a standup guy, and anyone would be lucky to have a friend like him. We'd probably just go out to a bar for some drinks and maybe pick up some chicks, hah.

7. How much of the book is realistic? 
Our Autumn Fire is actually very realistic. It could easily happen in our world. My short story Cowboy Kid is also realistic, albeit a bit scary. However, the rest of my work so far is in the realm of the fantastic.

8. Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life? 
Most of what I write just pops into my head from who knows where, but sometimes my personal experiences can give me an added dimension of insight into certain scenarios (like Elliot's design fiasco in Our Autumn Fire).

9. What is your main goal with writing books?
I would say my main goal with each piece of writing is different, but overall they all do the same thing: try to make the reader see that there are other perspectives out there. Not everything is black and white, and sometimes you never think of how something you believe to be true might not be so simple.

10. What job did you want to be as a kid? 
 I always wanted to be a police officer as a kid for some reason. Kinda still do, but the practicalities and my love of writing surpassed that notion long ago.

11.Do you ever experience writer’s block?
 I think every writer experiences writer's block at some point, but that doesn't mean writer's isn't an illusion. If you just begin writing nonsense, within a couple minutes your "writer's block" will have disappeared magically.

12. Do you work with an outline, or just write?
I tend to start my stories with no plan at all, but when I get to about 5% of the way through, I begin to slowly outline what will happen before going further. It's a pretty bare outline that really just pinpoints the main plot. The rest of it, I leave for me to do as I get to it.

13. Imagine your main character dies on page one.  Everything else remains the same.  Describe the new plot to your book.
 Hmm, I'm going to use Our Autumn Fire for this since it's my completed novel. If Eli dies on the first page, the love story with him couldn't happen, but most of the plot would still work. There would just be a storyline with Wes grieving his friend's death while Hayley consoles him to replace the love story.

14. Where do the your ideas come from?
From my overactive mind or from the minuscule cosmos that exists up there. Or heck, maybe they come from a parasitic alien that controls me and forces me to write things I don't want to. You can never tell with these things.

15. What is the hardest thing about writing?
 The actual act of writing. It kills your shoulder after a while and takes too much time away from doing other things.

16. Will you have a new story coming out soon? If so can you tell us about it? 
ell if I told you of all the things I have on the backlog, it would make your head spin. That being said, I'm currently in the middle of Identity which I'm updating as often as I can. It's a crazy, fast paced, edge of your seat, what the heck is going on, is this guy serious type of book that's definitely not going to sit well with conservative types. It's got to do with memory and obsession, but I really can't give away any more than that. You'll just have to read it.

17. What was the hardest part of writing your book? 
 As usual, I'll be sticking to Our Autumn Fire to answer. I'd say the hardest part of writing it was figuring how to weave all the story lines together but still have the main characters stand out as the main characters. To me, even the most minor characters have these very interesting lives, and it's hard to keep from writing everything about them into a book where they show up maybe twice

18.Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it? 
 I learned that its not hard to write a novel. Actually it's pretty easy. The hard part it making it good. And that requires editing. Lots and lots and lots of it....

19.Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers? 
 All I have to say is thank you for all your continual support and hopefully you continue to support me in all my future endeavors as I try to get published and even beyond that. You guys (on this site) have been my first supporters and I won't soon forget that.

20. Do you have any advice for other writers?
Write. Just do. Think it's a bad idea? Write it down. Don't like the way it sounds? Leave it and move on. In the grand scheme of things, the first draft is where most writers fail. They're too caught up in getting it perfect right off the bat that they forget to finish. And well, if you never finish, you'll never be able to do anything with it. No matter how bad you think it is, just write it and get the full story on paper/screen. You can worry about making it perfect in the editing process (that's what it's for!).