Inside the Wild Worlds of Jesse Fresco: From Drive Like Hell to Skyhawk

Jesse Fresco - Author for

Jesse Fresco began writing as an escape from his day job as a stagehand. His work is heavily inspired by his sixteen years in the film industry and various life experiences. An avid reader with a library of over four hundred prose novels and graphic novels, he found inspiration in the works of Garth Ennis, Lee Child, Derek Robinson, and Stephen King.

Contact: Jesse Fresco at jfresc2@comcast.net | N/A | Visit Online!

          

Break/Fix Podcast interviews author Jesse Fresco about his pulpy, fast-paced novella Drive Like Hell and the expanding Autumn Frost series, including upcoming sequels Black and Blue (set in Baltimore) and Funland Fury. Fresco discusses his background in the film industry and stagehand work, how writing became his escape, and his inspirations for characters, pacing, and car-centric action while keeping rules like having Autumn drive most of the time and never fire a gun. The conversation also covers his longer, more personal sci-fi novel Skyhawk, inspired by the NES game Captain Skyhawk, his choice of relatable “used future” worldbuilding, and plans for a seven-book arc, plus his self-publishing experience via Ingram-Spark, audiobook plans, and a new AI-themed sci-fi project.

• They say “write what you know” so being a DMV-native, is the Autumn Frost series “based on a true story”
• Autumn Frost feels like she was born from equal parts adrenaline, bad decisions, and Florida humidity. What sparked the idea for a protagonist who thrives in that kind of chaos?
• The novella format gives Drive Like Hell this punchy, high‑octane pace. How did writing something shorter shape the storytelling style, especially with such wild, Florida‑man‑style antics?
• Autumn Frost’s adventures feel like they could go in a hundred unpredictable directions. When you’re writing her character, how do you balance the absurd with the grounded, or do you just let the chaos lead?
• Cars are practically characters in this story. What role does automotive culture — especially this uniquely unhinged flavor of it — play in shaping the narrative?
• You’ve mentioned to me that Drive Like Hell is just the beginning. There’s another novella “Black and Blue” coming as the next installment in the series. What excites you most about expanding Autumn Frost’s world?
• As you build out more stories in this universe, what new corners of you are most eager to explore?
• Autumn Frost is such a vivid character. What aspects of her character are you looking forward to developing further as the series grows?
• Your expanding Skyhawk series takes a sharp turn into a retro‑inspired, high‑flying adventure. How did the NES classic Captain Skyhawk influence the tone or world‑building for this new project?
• For readers who fall in love with Autumn Frost, what can they expect from Skyhawk — and how does this new series reflect your evolution as a writer?

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Break Fix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from all over the autos sphere, from wrench, turners, and racers to artists, authors, designers, and everything in between. Our goal is to inspire a new generation of Petrolhead that wonder. How did they get that job or become that person?

The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.

Crew Chief Eric: Tonight we’re diving headfirst into the kind of storytelling that smells like gasoline, questionable life choices, and a touch of our favorite Florida man headlines, but all in the best way possible. Author Jesse Fresco has carved out a lane all his own with his book drive like hell, an Autumn Frost story, a novella that’s chaotic, clever, and unhinged in all the right ways.

And that’s just the beginning because drive like hell isn’t a one-off. It’s an opening salvo in a whole series of autumn frost adventures. Each one expanding this fever dream universe [00:01:00] where danger, humor, and sheer audacity all share the same bar tab. Jesse writes with that rare mix of pulp energy and sharp world building, the kind that makes these stories feel like a doorway into something much bigger.

And speaking of bigger, this wild rod is also a runway for his next major project Skyhawk. And if that name rings a bell, it should. Jesse’s tipping his hat to the NES Classic Captain Skyhawk channeling that retro high flying save the world spirit into a brand new book series that promises to be just as bold and just as unapologetic fun.

Everything he’s written so far. So whether you came for the Florida man style chaos, the pulp adrenaline, or the nostalgia charged flight path into Skyhawk, Jesse Fresco is about to take us on a ride that refuses to slow down. So with that, Jesse, welcome to Break Fix.

Jesse Fresco: Oh, thank you. Appreciate it. Keep going.

Keep more, more, more, more compliments. Keep going.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, like all good break fix stories. Everyone has a superhero origin story, and I found your bio to [00:02:00] be really interesting. It says. You began writing as an escape from your day job as a stage hand.

Jesse Fresco: Yep.

Crew Chief Eric: And your work is heavily inspired by 16 years in the film industry.

Mm-hmm. And your various life experiences. And I noted in the authors, you’re inspired by one of my personal favorites. Garth Ennis is on that list.

Jesse Fresco: That’s right.

Crew Chief Eric: Talk to us a little bit about becoming an author.

Jesse Fresco: Got into the film business back in 2008, right as I got outta college. One month later I was in the business as a, uh, gripping an electrician.

For, uh, films and tv and of course about three months after I got in the business, the 2008 financial collapse happened. And I swear to God, I was making a delivery to a place in DC for a commercial. I’m in a Sprinter van, so I’m at the loading dock and no one’s coming out to receive the gear. So I’m just sitting there and I’m listening to NPR ’cause I listen to NPR in the truck.

I’m like, man, no one’s coming out. And I would call the contact number, no one would answer. I’m, uh, I’m listening to the radio and it says on the [00:03:00] radio, Goldmans Sachs being investigated for fraud. The commercial was at Goldman Sachs in Washington, DC that day. So finally a guy comes out to the lone dock, he says, yeah, yeah, the job’s canceled.

I just looked at him dead in his face and I said, does this have anything to do with the fact that you guys just been accused of fraud? He stared at me for about five seconds, turned around and walked away. I’m pretty sure he lost his job that day. Uh, so for about a year at that point, I was working a kind of dead end job as a grip and an electrician at a grip house in Washington DC originally called Washington Source, now called Red Star.

They’ve since moved out of that location, but yeah, it took a little while, but eventually I did. The economy did recover. I gotta work on various films and TV shows. Captain America Two Veep, season one through Four, a little bit on House of Cards, Phil Amina. I did a bunch of movies, TV shows, and I kind of realized at a certain point I don’t really enjoy this.

I don’t like it, even though I, I love movies and I love TV shows, but I realized I don’t enjoy waking up at four o’clock in the morning to be on set [00:04:00] for about 14 hours a day. Because it’s a soul killing job. If you have hobbies, you’re not gonna enjoy them. If you have a, a spouse or a partner, probably not gonna see them.

If you have kids, you’re probably not gonna see them, don’t have pets. So it just gotta the point where I was like, why am I doing this? And then eventually I since turned in my union card in 2023. In September, 2023, I did finally turn in my card for IOI 4 87. And, uh, in 2016 I was, I jumped into stagehand stuff where I was just working in like concerts and corporate events, which, well, it doesn’t pay as much and it’s non-union.

It’s more my speed. I can set my own schedule. I don’t always have to get up at 4:00 AM I can work a normal job. If I had continued to try to stay in the film business, I would never have written anything.

Crew Chief Eric: So they say. Write what you know. And coming from the DMV, the Autumn Frost Series is based on a resident of the DMV.

And so I wondered, as I was reading it, in your sort of sorted past and all the jobs you’ve had, were you ever a, as you say [00:05:00] in the book, a two and from driver, did you drive for Uber or Lyft? No. Okay.

Jesse Fresco: No. No. I’ve no. I’ve never, I’ve never driven Lyft or anything like that. I, I questioned doing it at one point back when COVID was happening.

’cause I was like, I kind of need some work. But eventually I got the unemployment for that and I was like, okay, I can relax for a bit. One of the things that people always say is, well, I don’t know how to write. Well, here’s how you become a writer. You just start, just start, pick a thing you want to talk about and just start writing.

I did the kind of lead child thing, the writer of the Jack Reacher books, when he lost his job and he was outta work, he said, well, I’ve read a bunch of books. I could probably write one. How hard could it be? You don’t realize how hard it is until you actually start doing it, so, but it is tough. I would kind of off and on, start working on various things.

I’d started off various projects all the way, like the Skyhawk novel. That started as another project back when I was in film school in 2006, seven, something like that, called Seven Star Fighters. That was the, the seven moniker attached to a sci-fi storyline, and I kind of abandoned it ’cause I, I just wasn’t good enough as a writer [00:06:00] at that time.

Also, I then realized there’s another story that is that it’s called Battle Beyond the Stars. It’s a Roger Corman film. So I was like, okay, I’m gonna truck that out the window. Don’t need to do that. So I kind of put it on ice and I would come back to Skyhawk every now and again. It just kept changing over and over again.

There’s like. Three or four aborted attempts. I probably still have those on a flash rep somewhere, and I’m sure if I looked at them now I’d go, woo, that’s not good.

Crew Chief Eric: So let’s talk about the inspiration for Autumn Frost then. Are they based on true stories? Were these things you were reading in the news?

Where’d you get the idea for this?

Jesse Fresco: Because Skyhawk was so political and it’s it’s very politically oriented story. I said, you know what? I need something that’s just like some pulpy fun, just so people just jump in, read it, and jump out. Like you said, you read drive like hell very quickly on a plane.

That’s what I wanted. Something that you can just jump in, read it in one setting and you’re done. It edges into politics, but it doesn’t get super political. And one thing I was kind of interested in at the time was the fentanyl crisis that’s going on right now. Right around the time I was working on drive like hell, the Trump administration declared fentanyl to be a weapon of mass destruction.

First. I was like, that’s kind of dumb. That doesn’t make any sense. And a friend [00:07:00] of mine, Patricia, who is a magistrate down in Peterburg, Virginia, she said, yeah, that’s true. It is a weapon of mass destruction. It is an incredibly addictive drug. Drug Dealers will cut it. Into other things like cocaine or crack, so it becomes more addictive.

It can destroy an entire community. It’s a highly, highly addictive substance. And so I thought, well, what if somebody ends up with two pounds of this in the trunk of their car? It’d be really, really shocking. I’ve always had this thought in my mind, like if I, if I was like steal like diamonds or gold or something like that, it’d be.

People think, oh, I’m rich. Now, my first thought would be, what the fuck am I supposed to do with this? I can’t change this anywhere. What am I supposed to do with it? So if I ended up with two pounds of fentanyl, you might think, oh, I could sell this somewhere and make a ton of money. I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

I, I’d just be like, give it to somebody. I don’t know. So the Autumn Frost series, the character herself is actually based on a cosplay I really liked named Autumn Ivy.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. Because I had this mental image of Dr. Beverly Crusher, played by Gates McFadden from Star Trek. Just, just the [00:08:00] way you explained her physique and the way she spoke.

And I was just like, I had this mental image. But I also noticed there was a theme. Redheads play a big role in your books because there’s a main character in Skyhawk that’s a redhead. There’s a couple ancillary characters that are redheads, and then Autumn Frost is redhead. And I’m like, okay, he’s got something going on there.

Jesse Fresco: I, I like redheads. I was like, but uh, the character is based on a, a cosplay like named Autumn Ivy. And at one point I was gonna have her do the audio book for, uh, Skyhawk and Drive like hell, but just schedules just don’t match up. She’s very, very busy, but the character is physically based on her. She’s big and she’s buff.

She’s got muscles everywhere. She has red hair, but a very, very sweet, cute face. And I was like, oh, that’s just Autumn. That’s it. I just wanted a character that doesn’t have a ton of baggage. She doesn’t have like a, a twisted, sorted pass. She wasn’t assaulted as a child. Like, no, she’s just a good person because Skyhawk is filled with a lot of morally ambiguous characters.

I said, you know what? Can I just have just a good person this sequel to derive like hell that I’m working on right now, black and blue, which is based in [00:09:00] Baltimore. The person she’s protecting says, why did you save me? And she said it was the right thing to do. Don’t need a reason.

Crew Chief Eric: I like the fact that drive like hell is a quick read.

It’s a novella format, which you don’t see much anymore. That was really popular, let’s say in the 1970s. These little novella series, like little murder mysteries.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah. Quick and cheap.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, and you’re bringing that back and I thought that was really cool. In order to do that, you have to make it punchy and high octane and very quickly paced.

It’s not a short story, it’s not an essay, it’s not a book. It’s somewhere in between. How did you find yourself writing something like that? That really hasn’t been done in quite a long time.

Jesse Fresco: I just kind of found ways to keep the pace up. For example, the, uh, the Baskins character, the sociopathic hit woman that was invented because I realized.

About chapter five, I was like, oh God, I’m gonna wrap this up in about five pages. I need some other kind of threat. ’cause originally they were just gonna just drop the fentanyl off and drive away. And I was like, well this book’s gonna be like 30 pages. I need more. And so introducing that character, it just felt like it [00:10:00] was appropriate to bring in some other threat because these follow the standard bell curve structure of plot.

Whereas Skyhawk is, there’s not really a plot structure to it. It’s kind of slice of life. Um, these follow the standard rising action. Hit the climax. Descending action. They knew ma very kind of standard structure because it’s just, you need something to just jump in, follow on a very easy path and then get out.

And so the characters in many ways are not necessarily underdeveloped, but they’re kind of straightforward. Like there’s not a lot of depth to them. You know, like the Cassie character. Not super in depth, but there’s a little bit. ’cause it’s meant to be a very quick compressed timeframe. It only takes place over the course of like 12 hours.

It’s just one bad night on New Year’s Eve. And black and blue is an even tighter timeframe. It takes place over the course of like five hours. It’s really, really quick.

Crew Chief Eric: You mentioned Baskin and again, mental images, right? So obviously you had Autumn Ivy in your mind for our main character, autumn Frost.

But Baskin reminded me of Mr. Kaplan from Blacklist, which was [00:11:00] Raymond Redingtons right hand sociopath. But I packaged it in this sort of. What if Lucy Lou was Mr. Kaplan? Like that’s, that’s the mental image I came up with. Am I, am I off base here?

Jesse Fresco: Uh, I’ve never seen Blacklist, so I couldn’t, I couldn’t really relate to that.

I, I can’t remember where, what the hell was the inspiration for Baskin? It was, um, oh, I’m trying to remember. Oh, it was, there’s a moment in Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Mr. And Mrs. Smith movie where Brad Pitt is at a card game. Somebody walks in and says, it is like something like, are you here for a job? And Brad Pitt goes, you are the job.

And then just bam, bam, bam, bam. Just shoots everybody in the room. I was like, okay. That’s just Basket’s character. Just does her job. Keeps to herself. Not really associated with people. ’cause uh, I was looking into what mental impairments could be useful as a hitman. I mean, you could also go back to, uh, Anton Sugar from No Country For old men, it clearly, a sociopath has no regard for anybody but himself.

He gets away with it at the end, which is. The [00:12:00] way the criminal justice system works these days, bad guys tend to get away with stuff. So

Crew Chief Eric: let’s talk about Autumn’s adventures a little bit more. And obviously you’re expanding her universe, you know, with black and blue and whatever else you have on the drawing board.

Mm-hmm. It feels like her adventures could go in a hundred different directions, right? Because they’re sort of absurd. Like I, and we tongue in cheek the idea of the Florida man story, but you hear some of these Florida man story headlines and you’re just like, truth is stranger than fiction sometimes.

But where do you plan? On taking her character, how far can you really go and how do you balance the absurd with the grounded

Jesse Fresco: in terms of plots? I just kind of come up with what would be interesting to me at the time. What are legitimate threats that we’re dealing with currently in America? I mean, black and blue.

The main threat is ice agents. There was that whistleblower came out, said that ICE agents are being trained to disobey the constitution and violate human rights. I was like, oh, okay. Then they’re bad guys. Not one of them stood up and said, Hey, this is wrong. So I thought I said to myself, okay, what if I [00:13:00] made them the villains?

I don’t have to explain anything. Everyone sees it now, and no matter where you land on the political spectrum, if you see people being dragged outta their homes. This is inherently wrong. And so black and blue is about autumn protecting a 15-year-old kid who is on the run from ice, and it’s a case of mistaken identity.

They got the wrong person. The wrong person was listed on their poll sheet, like, whoop, we gotta bring this person in. It’s like, no, that’s the wrong name. But they’re already committed. So they say, well, the hell with it, let’s just get ’em anyways. And then the third one that’s gonna be probably coming out around September called Funland Fury.

Autumn is gonna be on vacation with her girlfriend Becky in Rehoboth Beach, and they’re at a nightclub one night and there’s a shooting. Very much is similar to the Pulse nightclub shooting that happened down in Florida. And it turns out there is a neo-Nazi initiation ritual happening. Gotta kill somebody.

And so Autumn, instead of being sort of on the run like she is in the first two books, she is out for revenge.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, interesting.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah. One of her friends gets killed at the nightclub and so she’s taking a more proactive approach in the third book.

Crew Chief Eric: Alright, well this being a. We’re gonna put [00:14:00] air quotes, car show, you know, cars play a central role in Autumn’s world as a to and from driver.

And they’re practical characters in the story. I mean, you talk a lot about her Honda, right? And

Jesse Fresco: yeah, the Honda Accord.

Crew Chief Eric: I have so many questions. I could put so many threads and I’m like,

Jesse Fresco: why? Why a Honda Accord? Because it’s plain Jane. Normal.

Crew Chief Eric: It is. But then I kept thinking, well, is it the four cylinder? Is it the sixth?

Well, she doesn’t drive a stick. I figured that out.

Jesse Fresco: She knows how to drive a stick. All right. She knows how to drive a stick, which she, Dr. She does get one in black and blue, and there’s a bit where somebody meets up with her and she has to drive his car ’cause he’s been shot in the shoulder so he can’t drive.

And it’s a Subaru and she says A Subaru. Really? Yeah. But the, but the Subaru is a manual. It’s a stick shift and it’s got a supercharger in it. So it’s like, oh, this is gonna be great for a chase sequence. Great. We’re gonna totally overpower these guys.

Crew Chief Eric: So it’s, it’s fun things like that where you say, well, the Subaru’s got a supercharger in it.

’cause it’s like, okay, so that’s some fast and furious mods. ’cause it came with turbos from the factory.

Jesse Fresco: Mm-hmm.

Crew Chief Eric: So I found little things [00:15:00] like that as a car nerd. They just kind of stuck out at me like the scene at the mall. Where she’s trying to evade the guy in the old Land Rover, which if you’ve ever driven a Land Rover of that era, they’re not that fast.

That made me laugh for one, but then she’s like up on two wheels and I’m like, oh wow, this is getting interesting. I would’ve assumed Honda Accord icy night, that would’ve under steered and maybe she would’ve rubbed the jersey wall going down the ramp or something. I was like, okay, well he put up on two wheels.

I’ll take it. I’ll take it. You know, you take the absurd with the realistic.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: like the tire change scene. I don’t wanna give any. Spoilers out, but I’m so glad it didn’t escalate. ’cause I was like, spare tire, this is gonna get really good, really quick ’cause uh, it’s not gonna hold up to her previous driving, you know, stuff like that.

Mm. So I was thankful for those little tidbits, those little extras. And then again, as a car nerd, things stuck out to me and I’m like, well.

Jesse Fresco: Mm-hmm. Weird thing, I’m not a supercar nerd. I do like vehicles. I li I appreciate them. I currently drive a, uh, a Hyundai Tucson. Not a great car. ’cause my previous [00:16:00] car was a Buick Sare and I love that thing because hey

Crew Chief Eric: now,

Jesse Fresco: hey, it was a very efficient car, great gas mileage, smooth ride, and then I hit a deer.

So, so my mother was looking to get rid of her car, so I inherited the Tucson and she got something else for herself. I got this one for free.

Crew Chief Eric: So in drive like hell, is that deer hitting scene, is that part of your actual experience?

Jesse Fresco: Yeah, it was there because I needed to get rid of one of these trucks that’s chasing her, and I was like, well, I did hit a deer last time, so I wanted to do that.

It wasn’t as bad as that. It, it was just, I kind of just bumped it and it fell forward and then it got up and ran off. But it was enough damage that it was so out of date that they said, yeah, insurance isn’t gonna cover it. It’s basically just, just totaled. It would drive fine. It’s just I can’t drive something that’s damaged like that on the road.

Crew Chief Eric: I found the car chase scenes, which there are a lot of in drive like hell to be entertaining, especially because growing up in that area as well, I knew the roads you were talking about. I was like, I know exactly where they’re going. I’m like, I can visualize that [00:17:00] intersection in my head right now. I don’t know if I would’ve survived it the same way she did some of those cases.

Jesse Fresco: She’s bad luck in life, which she’s good luck in driving.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, that’s what everybody keeps saying in the book. So I, I thoroughly enjoyed that and I expect to see that obviously. In black and blue and in the, in the following ones as well. So that being said, do you feel like you’re gonna grow that because it is the central point she’s driving and she’s out there.

What do the future car chase scenes look like? Can you give us some idea of like, do you get a little bit more into the driving part of it?

Jesse Fresco: Uh, well definitely in black and blue. I mean, first chapter it starts off, it’s like right on the road. Kid jumps in the backseat is being chased by ice agents. They speed off, they’re in Canton in uh, Baltimore.

She makes a drop off of there. And after her lunch breaks, kid jumps in, they speed off, and they try hiding out in a factory that’s been closed down. And agents, uh, surround the building and they realize there’s only one way out that loading ramp for where they bring tractor trailers in. So it’s like she’s gonna pull a fast and furious and leap out of it.

Unlike the Fast and Furious movies where cars are impervious, [00:18:00] the moment she lands like, okay, wheels shaking, there’s a vibration in the pedals, what’s going on? Like just a tiny drop of like three feet. Immediately something goes wrong.

Crew Chief Eric: So do you see a future for Autumn where. Again, based in the area that we live in and the resources we have available to us, where maybe she becomes one of the defensive drivers for like Department of State.

I don’t know if you’re aware, but that training actually happens at Summit Point, Motorsports Park.

Jesse Fresco: Oh, I didn’t know that.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, West Virginia. That’s where they train all the Department of State people. So like do you see a future for her where she goes into. Law enforcement or something like that, or is that too far in the future for her?

Jesse Fresco: Uh, that’s probably too far in the future. I did have an idea where a politician jumps in the back of her car, like there’s some kind of an assassination attempt and the agents like, shove the, uh, politician in the back seat. Just say, just get outta here. We’ll tell you where to meet up. Like, I’m just not sure how to get to that one.

Crew Chief Eric: You referenced in the book about she lost her welding job and she

Jesse Fresco: mm-hmm.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, she got the to and from gig and, and now her life is driving and to [00:19:00] me I was like, wow, that’d be a really cool progression if like in a TV show where suddenly she went from pulling herself by her bootstraps, losing the job that she had for such a long time, and now becomes like this superstar part of Department of State.

Like I could see that’d be a cool way to sunset that adventure in some ways where she became a. Super heroine in a way

Jesse Fresco: that could happen. The issue though is if you look at the current department of state, they have basically said LGBT characters or people like that, not welcome here. So we’re going backwards in that direction.

She is, at one point, I was gonna say, she’s a straight up lesbian and I think that she’s just pan

Crew Chief Eric: right

Jesse Fresco: open to everything, but she does have a girlfriend that’s not really gonna fly with the current political administration because this is set in Trump’s America.

Crew Chief Eric: Got it. Yeah.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah, I, I think I could probably get to maybe her being sort of a bodyguard.

I had one idea about her being a bouncer at one point at a club, maybe doing something like that because in black and blue, due to the events of drive like hell, she has a little arsenal in her car now. She has, um, all non-lethal weapons. She has a [00:20:00] taser, a, an extendable baton, mace, and a. There was something else I had in there as well.

Anyways. She has like non-lethal stuff. The two rules I had for myself was writing this, this series, she has to be in a vehicle at least three-fourths of the time driving. And two, she’ll never fire a gun, never fires a gun. Because I remember seeing a movie called Entrapment years ago with Sean Connery and Katherine Jada Jones and Sean Connery says, captain Jada Jones.

He says, never own a gun. You’ll be too tempted to use it.

Crew Chief Eric: Interesting.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah, I

Crew Chief Eric: like

Jesse Fresco: that. I needed to put some restrictions on myself. ’cause the more barriers and boxes you put yourself in as a writer, the more creative you can get as a story.

Crew Chief Eric: Since we’re talking about universe building, let’s switch gears a little bit away from Autumn Frost and the Autumn Frosts series and talk a little bit more about Skyhawk.

Jesse Fresco: Mm-hmm.

Crew Chief Eric: Skyhawk is a lot longer than Autumn Frost.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah. I had a lot to get outta my system,

Crew Chief Eric: and I will say it reads fast. I gotta pay you a huge compliment because in terms of tone. This feels more like Earnest Klein. It’s very much more like [00:21:00] ready player one in terms of style compared to Autumn Frost, which is very fast and very easy to get through.

I’ve been enjoying Skyhawk, but in, in the back of my head, I’m always going, I wonder if this part came from the game. I gotta go back and play it. You know? I got all my old NES cartridges and stuff. I’m like, where did he get his inspiration for that? Although there were no spinning space docks or anything like that.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah, none of that.

Crew Chief Eric: But it’s all good. But. He’s such a interesting character. There’s a lot of things going on. Not yet Captain, but Cyril Eisner, his flight handle is Skyhawk. Call

Jesse Fresco: sign, call sign.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. It’s call sign is Skyhawk.

Jesse Fresco: Which is funny because that’s the name of his ship and it is like you gave your ship and the call sign the same thing.

He is like, well, it’s too good. I can’t, can not use it’s,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s overconfident and a little pretentious.

Jesse Fresco: Well, that’s kind of the point. He is overcompensating.

Crew Chief Eric: Tell us about Skyhawk. I get that the inspiration is from the NES Classic, but where are you going with this one?

Jesse Fresco: That one is a much more personal story ’cause Cyril is based 70% on me.

I started writing that in earnest in, I think it was August of [00:22:00] 2024, when I was like, okay. I have a lot to get outta my system ’cause I’d had like a bad falling out with somebody. I had a thing for a lot of relationships, kind of imploded one after another. And at the time I had another po. I had a podcast that I was working on at the time for film and tv, and that was beginning to wrap up.

So I needed some sort of creative outlet. So I said, why don’t I just start writing Skyhawk? Why don’t I just start with that? So it’s intended to be the first in a series of seven. The character came out of me just trying to get a lot of junk outta my system, like Cyril’s father. That’s based upon a combination of my father and my stepfather, the life that he leads as a freelance star fighter.

That’s basically just my freelance life. Uh, he. Likes to work out. I enjoy going to the gym and working out. And so he has an addiction to coffee. I’m addicted to coffee. I’m up to three cups a day. I know my kidneys hate me. Uh, so, but yeah, he also has a lot of mental issues. Probably some sort of bipolar problem, probably some anger issues that comes in a little bit later.

And he is a [00:23:00] womanizer. He sleeps around a bit, and I’ve since gotten out of that part of my life. I’m 40 now. I gotta kind of stop doing that, you know. But, uh, yeah, it, it kind of was me just sort of what would I like to read? What would I enjoy reading? And I got to meet one of my writing inspirations, Lee Child, who writes the Jack Reacher books.

I met him in 2019 at the Hamilton in Washington, dc. I told him I was a struggling writer. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to talk about, and he just said, just write what you enjoy and have fun while you’re doing it. And that’s basically what he did with his first book Killing Floor, which now super well known.

It’s not a great book, but it’s, it’s a good first attempt for a writer. It the early Jack Reacher books. There’s some questionable parts in them. So I just started writing Skyhawk the way I wanted it. Like what do I want? He’s an ACE pilot. He does the right thing. He’s probably got some anger problems, but he ultimately will do the right thing no matter what.

He cares about his team, but he also doesn’t like the idea of command ’cause at a certain point later on, he really fucks up.

Crew Chief Eric: No spoilers.

Jesse Fresco: He fucks up really, [00:24:00] really bad. I put in, a lot of those characters are based on people that I know, like Jess is based on close friend of mine, ghosty Muffin cosplay named withheld upon request for her privacy.

But yeah, that’s just her. There’s an actual artwork image of her in the book that’s her, that is just her face and she does have a split tongue. So yeah, there’s lots of characters that are based on people that I know, and I put them all into the book and they all appreciated it.

Crew Chief Eric: For the folks that might start reading your books, and they may start with the Autumn Frost series and then jump over to Skyhawk like I did.

There’s a big question that I have about Skyhawk that maybe other people will come to the same conclusion I did pretty quickly, because it’s something you realize very early in the book. The first chapter sort of sets the tone politically. Yeah. 700 years after the revolution, we all went on to space.

Yeah. And these things happen. I’m exaggerating the dateline here. The

Jesse Fresco: prologue. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody kept telling me to cut that prologue. It was like, it’s too long. It, it’s not important. It’s like, no, it, it, it, it’s necessary.

Crew Chief Eric: It is, it, it makes me [00:25:00] understand, okay, we’re not on earth. But there’s earth-like things, you know, we’re in proxima B and there’s all the surrounding new alien species that are very humanoid or you know, sort of like Star Trek, where the Vulcans are basically humans with pointy, they’re like elves, right?

I mean,

Jesse Fresco: yeah. I didn’t want people with head tendrils walking around. There’s no twills in this universe.

Crew Chief Eric: Exactly. But the one thing that I struggle with, and I’m wondering if anybody else will, and I’m, this is why I’m asking you to explain it, is. When we get to Proxima B, where I’m just gonna say, captain Skyhawk lives and makes his life, right?

Mm-hmm. It is very much like Earth. There’s cars and there’s regular planes, and there’s this and there’s that, and there’s the coffee shops and the police precinct and all these things that I’m like. But aren’t we so many years in the future? Sh I I felt like it’s slightly devoid of sci-fi, which is not a bad thing.

But what I’m asking is why did you make the choice not to set it in, let’s say the same timeline as Star Trek? The next generation would’ve been in.

Jesse Fresco: The main reason is because. [00:26:00] When you’re writing sci-fi, you’re not talking about the future, you’re talking about the time in which you’re living. I’m a hardcore cynic.

My professional name on the podcast that used to be part of was the professional cynic. I, I think we’re at the point where this is as good as it gets. I don’t think we’re gonna really improve beyond this. There’s a really good book series I like call the Remembrance of Earth’s past trilogy. Three body problem, dark forest and deaths end.

And in that book it does get very ridiculous and kind of super sci-fi by the time you get to the second book and where people are using unique forms of transportation to get around, people are living in underground cities because up top, it’s nearly unlivable due to climate change. And that’s. Great, but it’s not relatable.

And I wanted things that are more relatable, more believable. And the reason I explained the situation on earth is because in book six we go back to Earth. Like I have the whole series planned out. We’re going back to earth at some point, and it’s wrecked.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah, okay.

Jesse Fresco: It does get cleaned up a bit because there’s less people there.

That’s the big problem we’re having now is that there’s just too many [00:27:00] people. There’s just too many people. Like this planet was not built to house 8.5 billion people. It’s built for like four, and I think we’re about to go through massive die off pretty soon, which is what happens in the book, the Dark Forest, which is that there’s this timeframe called the Great Ravine where due to.

Misallocation of funds, climate change and militarization of various nations due to this impending alien invasion, 5 billion people die. And I feel like that’s what we’re headed towards right now. We’re not getting off this planet, let’s just be honest. We’re not getting off this planet. And so I wanted things that are more relatable because I, I’m a big fan of the Expanse books as well as well, also the, uh, the TV show, which is phenomenal.

And that does feel like realistic sci-fi. If you wanna see what the future’s like. This is pretty much it. And it looks generally like what we do now. Yeah, there’s a little more technology. They have some holograms, which I didn’t care for. And I also prefer the Alien and Star Wars design of the used universe.

Things are kind of broken down. Things are kind of running on empty, things are kind of scratched up and scuffed up. Like Cy [00:28:00] Skyhawk is constantly being repaired, so there’s like plates that are misshapen and. Coloring is wrong. It’s like it’s things are just barely holding together. I wanted it to feel a little more relatable.

Like there’s a point later on in, I don’t think you’ve reached this point. They go to a pizzeria in the future. Like there, there’s a, there’s a pizzeria. Why? Because there’s always gonna be pizzerias in the future. Like it’s always gonna be that.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and I think that’s part of its charm. It just feels very normal.

It feels very relatable, even though. The Skyhawk series picks up, if I remember from the prologue, it’s like 200 years from now or 250 years from now or something like that. Mm-hmm. So it’s in the not so distant future.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: What I noticed was there weren’t gigantic technological leaps outside of his ship and a couple of other things.

Yeah. I felt that that was believable. Now you do take a massive leap with the foil system.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Where they’re doing the basically faster than light type transport teleporting type of thing.

Jesse Fresco: We recently did achieve it. We did achieve it. I, I think just recently, I think, think it was a, we teleported, [00:29:00] I wanna say it was an atom from one end of a room to another.

So technically we have achieved teleportation. Technically, uh, there’s a lot of hoops to jump through to get to it, but we have technically achieved it. It’s basically the Battlestar Galactica thing with the FTL drives. That’s, that’s all it is. I just need to get from point A to point B much faster because.

If I was to just not have that, I would have to use something like what they do in The Expanse, which is the Epstein Drive, unfortunate name

Crew Chief Eric: or something like Mass Effect, where they use the mass generators.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah. But even that, that series relies upon, well, we found this alien technology that we don’t understand.

It’s like, eh, I don’t really want that. It’s. The closest I get to that is in chapter three, where uh, they go to this planet where they find these ancient ruins and there’s like this whole alien civilization that’s been wiped out. It’s like, no, that’s the closest you get. It’s like going and visiting like the Incan Temples in Mexico.

It’s just an ex exploration of something that was bigger. That’s all you get.

Crew Chief Eric: It felt very Indiana Jones there for a minute.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: [00:30:00] and then it ended sort of Jurassic Parky, which I liked. I enjoyed that whole chapter though too.

Jesse Fresco: That was very much inspired by the video game. Hell divers.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah, there you go.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah, because I was, I was super into playing Hell Divers. I had a whole team I would play with. We would jump on every night, jump into hell divers two, and we would drop in and it was just always killing bugs and bots. It was so much fun. So bugs were on my mind. I was like, I’m gonna put that in. Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So the one thing I found funny though, to talk about the future by way of Skyhawk, was that you kept the cell phone around.

Jesse Fresco: Yep. I mean, I don’t say how big it is or how small it is,

Crew Chief Eric: right.

Jesse Fresco: In terms of like communications, like I remember seeing an interview with the Expanse writers and they said, these people like Mark Zuckerberg, think we’re gonna have like implants in our heads and we’re gonna have like biomechanical parts shoved into us.

And all the writers that were like, no, that sounds terrible. Why would anybody want that? That sounds awful. What if it breaks down? What if you’re trying to like download a file to like a chip in your head and you don’t have enough, you’re not connected to a wifi, you can’t get it. Why would you want that?

It’s like, yeah, so I just, I feel like the phone [00:31:00] will always be around. It’s the 21st century slave bracelet. It’s like we’re stuck with it. Like, I don’t think it’s gonna disappear. It might change its shape. It might look a little different, but it’s, I think we’re just gonna be stuck with it. I don’t see it really changing too much.

Like I said, I’m a professional cynic. I don’t see us moving too far away from the phone.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s switch gears here a little bit since you’ve made the journey into not just one, but two series of books, what else are you working on? Got a third series in there that you’re cooking up.

Jesse Fresco: I have a one off science fiction book about artificial filmmaking that I’m working on called Artificial or.

The denouncement of false creativity. I see all these AI videos that pop up on social media, and I’m just like, Ugh. It drives me nuts. I can’t stand it. And you just look at the environmental devastation that it causes. It’s like, this isn’t worth it. But yeah, it’s about how I think the film industry is gonna look in the future.

Everything has been consolidated into one studio. There’s no competition left, and everything is done by [00:32:00] mainly one or two people to make a movie, and everything is just made in an artificial environment. Actors sell off their likenesses so they can just make money off of their likeness, but they don’t actually show up to do anything.

It delves into the concept of super intelligence with artificial intelligence, and that’s. If it achieves that, what would that look like? How would that affect society? What are the environmental effects of that? How does an AI come to terms with its own existence when all it knows how to do is just that one thing to make movies?

It’s that Rick and Morty bit the Butter Robot. Pass the butter. Yes. What is my purpose? You pass butter, but what is my purpose? You pass the butter. Oh my God. Yeah. Welcome to the club. Imagine telling that to a super intelligent machine. It has nowhere to go. It’s like it’s stuck in a box. It would lose its mind,

Crew Chief Eric: but does it really have a mind?

Jesse Fresco: If it’s super intelligent, it’s aware of itself.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s true.

Jesse Fresco: It’s aware,

Crew Chief Eric: sentient, right?

Jesse Fresco: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So is there a passion project, something you’ve always wanted to write about that would be totally off of the stuff you’ve been working on now?

Jesse Fresco: I mean, I’ve got a bunch of the Autumn [00:33:00] Frost series working on, I’m, I’m still working on the seven Star fighters books.

I’m working on book two, which is called Seven Star Fighters. Sorcerers Gambit takes place about 20 months after the end of Skyhawk. Basically a big war breaks out after the end of that war. The human race basically loses they capitulate and say, yes, we give in, we’re done fighting. The story is basically a prison escape storyline.

It delves into, I dunno if you’ve ever heard of this thing called Unit 7 31. Back in World War ii, there was a Japanese medical program called Unit 7 31 for human experimentation. They said it was experimentation, it was actually torture. Really, really grim time. And the worst part is that there were no survivors and no one was prosecuted.

Crew Chief Eric: Again, you’re on this journey of many, many thousands of words. Mm-hmm. What would you say to, you know, an aspiring author, somebody that’s you a couple years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, that’s thinking about writing a book, like you mentioned, write what you know, and, and you said at the top of the conversation, how hard could it be?

Famous last words on top gear as well.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So what have you learned and what advice can [00:34:00] you share for aspiring authors?

Jesse Fresco: Number one, have an editor. Uh, absolutely get an editor. Uh, my, my editor, Brian Paone, who’s also a writer in Maryland, great editor. Also, he points out some continuity issues with some of my, some of my work.

Also, make sure to have people read your stuff before you start to publish it. Make sure you get feedback. Make sure that. You’re also a reader as well. You can’t write if you don’t read. Read everything. Read literally everything you can. Crime fiction, read biographies, read horror, read the classics, you know, but read anything and everything that you can.

You have to be a reader. If you’re gonna write, like I’m currently in the middle of Thomas Pins, gravity’s Rainbow, which I’m not enjoying. I don’t like it, but I feel like I have to read it because it’s considered a literary classic and I feel like I should read it. I’m also in the middle of Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, which I am enjoying very long book.

Feels like the ramblings of a madman, but it’s very good. And I’m also in the middle of the next volume of a series called Hammer Slammers by David Drake, [00:35:00] about a mercenary tank battalion in the year 3000. That very much inspired a lot of skyhawk in that in the future all warfare is fought with pmcs.

There are no official militaries anymore. Easier to just pay people, well to fight for you rather than using patriotism. It’s like, well, if nobody believes in your country, it’s not gonna matter. But if you pay them well, they will absolutely show up

Crew Chief Eric: as a writer, especially in today’s times, you know, a lot of folks have always relied on publishing companies, but there’s been a new trend, especially for younger authors, to go the self-published route, especially through organizations like Amazon.

For those aspiring writers, is that something you would recommend? Do self-publishing or go through a proper publisher? What has your experience been like for that?

Jesse Fresco: I tried pitching Skyhawk to various agents, and I got a lot of rejections because it’s not a traditional writing format. Very much inspired by Derek Robinson’s Hornet Squadron books, which are written very slice of life.

There’s not really a traditional plot structure. There’s not the standard bell curve, very morally ambiguous characters, and I got a lot of rejections also. Length of it. Kind of put a lot [00:36:00] of people off. So if you are really passionate about a story and really think this could be something, I would say go ahead and do self-publishing.

Just know you are gonna pay a lot of money, so if you can afford it, go ahead and do the self-publishing. I go through Ingram Spark, which is very efficient. They’re a little on the slow side, but overall I’ve had pretty good experiences. It’s also efficient in terms of payments. Every three months, you get a nice little check and direct deposited to your accounts.

I get a nice, like 10 bucks every three months, which is nice. They do take a cut because it’s basically print to order and it does link up to things like eBooks and Amazon and books a Million and things like that. So if you look there, you can find that stuff. But if you go to Ingram Spark, it does go more directly to them.

So it’s not like a six degrees separation kind of thing. It is a tough thing to self-publish because you have to do a lot of it yourself. You have to market it yourself, you have to share it yourself, signings. You have to organize that yourself. Whereas if you’re going through an actual publisher. They handle that, they handle the marketing, they get it out there, and so it’s a [00:37:00] little bit more efficient for them.

But, uh, self-publishing, I haven’t really had too many problems. Like I could have pitched Autumn Frost as a series to some major publisher, and they probably would’ve taken it because it’s a very straightforward story. But they would’ve said, oh, make it longer. Make it like 150 to 200 pages. And I didn’t want that because I just want ’em to be short, sweet to the point.

But they’re not gonna publish a book that’s only about 80 to a hundred pages. So I just said, I’ll just do it myself.

Crew Chief Eric: And in today’s publishing world, it’s a mixed media format too. So we’re just talking about printed media, and you mentioned eBooks in there. Do you see a future where Autumn Frost, or even Skyhawk will show up maybe on Audible as a audiobook?

Jesse Fresco: I am working on that. The problem with that is that it’s very expensive. I did finally get somebody that would be willing to do the audiobook. Friend of mine, she’s a musician in Maryland, and she will more than likely be doing the, uh, audiobook for Skyhawk and drive like hell. And so. I would probably just pay her directly and then I’ll have the audio file and then I’ll just send that to Audible and [00:38:00] they’ll have to approve it because she is a musician, she has the proper equipment for it, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

But yeah, it, I kept trying to get other people to do it, and schedules didn’t work out, and I saw people’s rates on various websites for what they wanted. It was like $3,000 for Skyhawk, and I was like, I can’t afford that. That’s three thousand’s way outta my price range. But yeah, because Skyhawk technically to print it, publish it, edit.

All that stuff was about 5K. So I’ll never make return on investment for Skyhawk, but it’s mine. That is exactly what I wanted. So with doing something like an audiobook, at one point I was gonna do it myself, but I just, I just don’t have the time. I just don’t have the time. It’s just way too time intensive.

It’s better to just pay somebody, have them do it professionally, and then I can send that off to some audiobook publisher and then they can handle it from there. So I’m working on it. It takes time.

Crew Chief Eric: Well with that, Jesse, we’ve reached that part of the episode where I like to invite our guests to share any shout outs, thank yous, promotions, or anything else we haven’t covered thus far.

Things like how do we get a copy of the Autumn Frost Series or Skyhawk?

Jesse Fresco: You can find both of [00:39:00] these on Ingram Spark, or you can find them over on Amazon. There’s links to places like Books A Million pretty much. If you just Google it, it should pop up just fine. Although the Amazon one, it does have another.

Cover that I rejected at a certain point because apparently the artist was using an AI tracing program and I said, Nope, you’re fired. So they lied. They said, yeah, I did it by hand. And then I saw it and I was like, no, that’s an AI tracing program. You traced over another cover. I see it right now. So I had to fire them.

And unfortunately, the one that’s on Amazon is the old cover. So if you want the new cover, go to IngramSpark and get the new one directly from that.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, and since we’re talking about covers. Wanna talk about the font on Skyhawk?

Jesse Fresco: It’s just the Captain Skyhawk font. It is just, it’s because I checked with the National Archives for Copyright Registry and because that game is so old, Nintendo did not re-up the copyright on it.

It’s technically, I think, public domain. So I just said, I’m just gonna take that. I had my artist, Fark Poko, who’s an artist over in [00:40:00] Hungary. I found him on Artscape. He does a lot of Star Wars stuff. I said, you have a really good look. I’m gonna hire you. So it’s like 500 for the front cover and it was well worth it.

It’s a great cover. I love it. At one point he was gonna do like a different kind of font for it. It was gonna be a different kind of design, and we went through it like a dozen different versions, and I just said, just use the original Captain Skyhawk font. It just looks better. And the way it kind of swooshes around the, uh, the wing kind of swooshes around the, uh, the title.

It just looked too good. I was like, no, just do that. Prefer that there is gonna be a change to it because once book two comes out, I am gonna redo the title and it’s gonna be called Skyhawk, A Seven Star Fighters Prequel. ’cause this is meant to be the setup for the next six books. This will continue in, uh, ongoing form once the second book is done.

These books take a long time to finish.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. And these are retailing four.

Jesse Fresco: Skyhawk is 20 and drive like hell is 10.

Crew Chief Eric: There you go.

Jesse Fresco: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, that’s gonna wrap up our ride through this wild, weird and wonderfully unhinged world of Autumn Frost, as well as skyhawk. And huge thanks to Jesse Fresco for hanging out [00:41:00] with us and pulling back the curtain on the Florida man fueled madness That powers drive like hell, as well as the upcoming sequel, black and Blue.

It’s not every day you get to talk to someone who can turn chaos, questionable car chases, and pure adrenaline into storytelling style that feels this alive. So if today’s conversation has you itching for more of Autumn’s Misadventures, good news. This novella is just the ignition spark and Jesse’s already building out the larger autumn frost universe.

And if what we heard today is any indication, the upcoming stories are going to crank the insanity, the humor, and the horsepower even higher. And of course, keep your eyes on the horizon for Skyhawk. Jesse’s next big series, and it takes flight with a retro inspired punch tipping its hat to the NES classic Captain Skyhawk, while launching a whole new world of high flying adventure.

So if you love bold characters, big stakes. And that’s signature Jesse Fresco Energy. You’re going to want to be there from page one and beyond. So thanks for listening and thanks for riding along. And as always, buckle up, stay curious, and if you’re [00:42:00] dying for more automotive floor demand stories, don’t miss our monthly drive through News series here on Break Fix.

And with that, Jesse, I can’t thank you enough for sharing your evening with us. Keep up the great work. I’m looking forward to the misadventures of Autumn Frost and all her car hijinx. And again, it’s been an awesome ride so far with Skyhawk and I can’t wait to see where this goes to.

Jesse Fresco: Oh, I think you’re really gonna enjoy the, uh, there’s one battle that I was really proud of riding the Battle of Lightfoot Station towards the tail end.

I’m really proud of that ’cause there’s a bit where. People forget about a pilot that ejected out of his ship and everyone kind of goes, Hey, are we forgetting something? Oh shit, we forgot him. There’s a lot of dark humor towards the tail end of the book. I’m very happy with that. So think you’re gonna enjoy it.

Crew Chief Eric: We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of Break Fix Podcast, brought to you by Grand Tour Motorsports. If you’d like to be a guest on the show or get involved, be sure to follow us on all social media platforms at Grand Touring Motorsports. And if you’d like to learn [00:43:00] more about the content of this episode, be sure to check out the follow on article@gtmotorsports.org.

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Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Jesse Fresco’s Origins
• 03:19 Film Industry Burnout & Becoming a Writer
• 06:21 Who is Autumn Frost?
• 09:05 Writing Fast Novellas
• 12:03 Future Books and Villains
• 13:57 Cars and Chase Craft
• 20:35 Switching to Skyhawk
• 24:24 Worldbuilding Choices & Relatable Future Tech
• 31:18 New AI Film Novel
• 33:36 Advice For Authors and the Self Publishing Reality
• 37:24 Audiobook Plans
• 38:46 Covers, Fonts, and Pricing
• 40:50 Wrap Up And Credits

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