Jon Stojan
Image credit: Jayson Adams
Jayson Adams has two award-winning science fiction novels, Infernum and Ares. Fans of his work will be happy to learn he also has a sequel underway.
A Slow but Rewarding Process
Like many other writers, Adams starts with a partial outline that may not have everything mapped out—including the ending. He uses this outline to draft chapters, but doesn’t necessarily work on them in order. He tries to write quickly, leaving placeholders for words or sentences that don’t immediately come to him. As the book gets further along, he’ll start polishing each chapter in order until it sounds good. If a section ever falls flat to him, he takes that as a sign that it’ll fall flat to the reader as well. He then throws it back for more edits, a rewrite, or even removal. It’s a slow process, but, in the end, he has something he’s genuinely happy with.
Ideas from Videos and Elsewhere
Adams watches physics videos while exercising, as they often spur new ideas and “what ifs” that turn into small details or even central technologies. For example, he recently learned about Helium-3 on the moon. That will play directly into the plot of his next novel, a sequel to Ares tentatively called King of the Moon.
Arriving at story lines is a little more nebulous, even a bit mysterious. With Infernum, he was captivated by the thought of how a starship captain and his crew would handle being assigned a one-way mission. For Ares, about a dark secret that ensnares the leader of the first manned mission to Mars, the central theme is how mankind will likely carry his problems with him to the stars.
When He’s Not Writing
Adams is an engineer at Google during the day, working on the Mac version of the Chrome browser. He’s an artist, but hasn’t done that much art recently. He plans to take life drawing up again. And, of course, he reads a lot. Unfortunately, he buys new books faster than he can read them, so they’re piling up.
You can learn more about Jayson Adams on his website and his Amazon bio. His novel Ares is available in both Kindle and Paperback format on Amazon.