Q: How do you get inspired to write? 
Q: What are you currently working on? 
Q: What is the best thing about being a writer? 
Q: How do you deal with writer's block? ​
​Q: Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Check back soon for more Q&A with Tom
​​

 

Q: What are you currently working on? 

Tom Anthony: I am not happy with how the world looks today from any perspective. From my perspective as an American, I witnessed the rise, decline and fall of an empire in three distinct phases.

I am currently working on a trilogy tentatively titled "Field Rep”. The story resonates with "Death of a Salesman”, but the protagonist is not a Willy Loman. Nor is he a Great Gatsby—rather he listens to what the universe is telling him as it changes and he adapts. The trilogy consist of:
Field Rep I --The Cold War Stalemate (1965-85) US investment in other countries.
Field Rep II -- Crash against Hadrian’s Wall revisited (1985-2005) Spending on Foreign wars drains American assets.
Field Rep III – Rust Belt (2005- 2015) US infrastructure in ruin, manufacturing moved to other countries.

The trilogy is a story of continuing revolution- history forever repeating political errors from President Johnson in Viet Nam to Bush in Kuwait to…we’ll see.
​

 

Q: What is the best thing about being a writer? 

Tom Anthony: My intention as a writer is to call attention to realities not easily perceived. I have found that when I write honestly about a culture, the people I write about learn something about themselves that never occurred to them before.

A writer looks and listens and makes his own judgments. Then through his creativity the writer’s logic may change the world, for better or for worse. As ideas build in my brain I flush them by writing to resolve my stress. I cannot resist the drive to create. 

All of that is what I love about being a writer.

 

Q: How do you deal with writer's block? 

Tom Anthony: Listen. Walk around town, walk in the country and listen. Keep a journal. A few written words will bring back a detailed memory. I clip out logos from advertisements, business cards, labels, souvenirs… and paste them into my journal on the day I was at that place, with a few words. Then I retire to be alone and to write. I am a loner like David John Moore Cornwell, better known by his pen name, John le Carré. Gather your material then hide far away to write. 

I think:
What is my story about? What is the thesis or log line, what is the “hook?”
Will it be a sad or a happy story?
Where does it happen?
Who are the characters?

Then make a plan to write 1,170 words each day. Track progress on a calendar on your desk. Push the tip of your pencil across a blank sheet of paper and to see what happens. Listen to yourself. And never stop pushing the pencil.

 

Q: How do you get inspired to write? 

Tom Anthony: Looking out the car window while riding along MacArthur Highway in Davao City, Philippines, gave me the inspiration to write a novel I would title MacArthur Highway. I asked what would General MacArthur think today riding along a highway named after him (incorrectly spelled “McArthur”) after he drove the Japanese out of the Philippines, today plastered with Japanese logos on billboards. Who won the war?

General MacArthur has been my inspiration since I took his side in a debate when I was in the third grade. He inspired me to graduate from West Point.

But there was no action in my story, so I added characters onto the stage and let them dance.

To create characters for MacArthur Highway I hung out in a bar, listened to people talking and observed. I observed a devout, married missionary with two kids talking to a gay guy, and I meshed them into one character- a conflicted, married, gay pastor. I went to cockfights and made the master of the ring an evil character, “Kristo”. A nice young lady was made a “retired” prostitute and a farmer unknowingly sold his daughter into sex slavery …and so the characters evolved. 

I imagined how my unique characters would interact with each other and then the story began to write itself. 

One time the bus I was taking from Davao to General Santos City hit a bump and woke me up. I was surprised. Iconic Mount Matutum in the far distance; a drug addicted bum sitting almost naked in the near gutter with his penis dragging in the green ooze. Things had changed along MacArthur Highway.

 

Q: Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Tom Anthony: Sarangani Girl is the sequel to Sabine and the prequel to Rebels of Mindanao. Sabine is murdered in the opening sequence just as she gives birth to a baby girl.