Introduce yourself; who are you and what types of books do you write?
My name is Bryan Young and I write all sorts of books. Lately I’ve been writing a lot in the BattleTech and Shadowrun universes, but I’ve been doing a whole bunch of horror and sword and sorcery as well. I’m pretty prolific and write just about whatever strikes my fancy. I haven’t found a genre yet I haven’t been fascinated by and haven’t tried my hand at. As for who I am, that’s a big question. First and foremost, I would describe myself as a storyteller across media. In film, comics, non-fiction, prose, and more. 
What are your books about?
My most recent novels have been set in the BattleTech universe, so they’ve been largely about people in a war-torn far-future overcoming adversity. The last one, Outfoxed, is very much about a found family of a mercenary unit struggling with the realities of what they actually do for a living and the fact that there are people actually trying to kill them for what they do. If I had to pick a common theme throughout my books now, it’s people trying to do the best they can and making the world around them a better place, even in the face of overwhelming obstacles. Even if that’s not always apparent, most people are trying to do that, and I like to look at that from a lot of different angles. 
What was the inspiration behind writing your first book?
The first book I wrote and the first book I published are two different answers. The first book I wrote, the inspiration was me thinking I could actually accomplish writing a book. I had read Graham Greene’s Dr. Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party and suddenly the idea of writing a book felt attainable. This was in 2005 or so. I set out to write my first novel and it took me almost two years and I think it’s interesting and taught me so much, but I doubt it will ever see the light of day. My second novel, the one that was the first to be published, was inspired by my time covering sci-fi and fantasy conventions as a journalist. Lost at the Con was a comedy of sorts that combined a whole bunch anecdotes and things I’d seen with a fictional story. Covering a press event at Dragon Con one year I asked myself what Hunter S. Thompson would think of a show like that and then the book came right to me and then it sort of wrote itself. It came out in 2011. 
What did you learn while writing your second book?
My second book, Operation: Montauk, was put out in 2012 by a small press and that was my first crack at a book that I wrote for fun. My oldest son was 8 or 9 when I was writing it and it was my attempt to just put in the sort of stuff we loved for bedtime stories. Which is why it’s about a time-traveling GI who travels back in time to kill Hitler, but instead finds himself fighting dinosaurs in the past, but the Nazis show up anyway and he has to fight them, too. It’s a great sci-fi yarn and I learned a lot, but I think the thing I learned most was to have fun and really focus on the audience you’re writing for. In the case of that book, it was just do what I needed to in order to put a smile on my kid’s face. 
What is the most rewarding part of being an author?
For me, it’s just getting to tell stories for a living. Writing is something I feel I need to do. It’s a compulsion. It’s the thing I do for money, but it’s also the thing I do for pleasure. For therapy and release. For sanity. For relaxation.
It’s just the thing I love doing and that makes it the most rewarding part.
Writing is catharsis. 
What elements do you think make for a good story?
A good story can be made of almost anything if it’s strung together in the right order, and so the makings of a good story for me often come down to structure, I suppose. If you place the blocks in the right sequence, just about anything can be compelling and keep you teetering on the edge. I really focus hard on structure when I’m doing my work and I think it’s one of the things I’m best at. 
What is the hardest part of being an author for you?
Turning it off. I work too much. I’m constantly turning things over in my mind. I’m constantly thinking of things, chewing on ideas, constantly working on stories. It never ends. That and all of the paperwork and business side of things. I don’t know why they decided that writers and creatives still needed to do things like file paperwork and taxes. I don’t mind paying taxes, I just want to be exempt from having to do the paperwork. 
What is your current writing project?
I’m working on a bunch of stuff right now, and I’m under NDA for most of it. Of the things I can talk about: I have a BattleTech novel coming out later this year called Ghosts of Timkovichi that is about a mercenary unit called the Ghost Dogs, a splinter faction of the Kell Hounds, who are called back into service and face their most difficult test. I also have a series of interconnected BattleTech novellas coming out that involve Clan Ghost Bear and their current civil war that I’m really proud of.
I’m also just finishing up a serial novel I’ve been working on for Michael A. Stackpole’s Chain Story project. The Chain Story is Mike’s free sword and sorcery fiction project where he’s curating short fiction from all sorts of new and established fantasy writers. I’d contributed a couple of one-off stories to it, but this serial novel project really took off and part four is just about to hit. The Adventures of Pip Strongpaw - Part Four - The Hunt For Violet Shatterwing comes out in February. And it’s been so popular I’m even working on an RPG for the world. It’s been a lot of fun.
What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but for me, it’s been to write every day. Ray Bradbury’s idea that you have to just burn through the bad stuff before you can get to the good stuff feels very true. I keep track of how many days in a row I’ve been writing without missing one and I’m well over ten years into that streak. That momentum helps. But if I had to boil that down for others, it’s to find what process works for you and stick with it. It all comes down to finding out what alchemy works for our own brains. For me, it’s writing every day.
Where can readers discover more about you and your books?
The primary place folks can find me is my author website, swankmotron.com. As far as social media, I’m primarily on Bluesky and Instagram, though searching “Swankmotron” will find me just about anywhere else. I would highly recommend keeping an eye on Michael A. Stackpole’s Chain Story for the Pip Strongpaw stories (here’s a link to the first installment). I also run my Patreon where I provide folks with a short story for as little as $1 a month and it’s celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. I’ve done a lot in film, so naturally I can be found on IMDb and Wikipedia as well. And if you want signed copies of my print books, I have an online shop for that. 