Interview Tom W. Miller

by

Sylvia Rochester

1) Hi, Tom, glad to meet you. Are you a native of the Shenandoah Valley?

No, I was born in Arlington, Texas and grew up in the Houston area. I’ve lived in the Shenandoah Valley for the last fifteen years.

2) I noticed in your bio you said you parleyed eight years of higher education into a job as a cart guy at Sam’s Club. Care to explain what prompted that decision? What did you study in college?

Pushing carts is one of the things you’re qualified for when you major in American History. I wanted to be a college professor but the necessities of life intervened. Luckily, carts are now a thing of the past for me.

3) What prompted you to become a writer and how long have you been writing?

I think anybody who loves books thinks about writing at some point. I wrote a lot of nonfiction in college and enjoyed it. I have more latitude when writing fiction, which I’ve been doing for about six years.

4) Seems bio technology holds your interest, with cloning being a specific field. What other stories do you have in mind for the future? Ever consider biological terrorism as a subject?

I think that biotechnology is an easy field in which to find story ideas. I can usually find a couple of good concepts in any issue of Scientific American. I’m not interested in writing about biological terrorism, though. It seems that many people have done that recently. If I’m going to bother writing a book, I want to have something new to say.

5) Your latest book, The Symbiosis, deals with Alzheimer’s. Did any particular incident trigger the writing of this book? Do you believe stem cell research will lead to a cure for this disease? You blurb tells of terrible side effects. Are the risks worth taking?

The incident that triggered the novel was an article I read about a group of scientists who cultured neural stem cells from the brains of cadavers. I’ve never had anybody close to me get Alzheimer’s, but I read many accounts of the disease and its terrible course, and so I decided my main character would have Alzheimer’s. I do think that scientists will find a cure, but I don’t expect it will be within my lifetime. One reason I think it will take a long time is that scientists will be wary of side effects. Of course, the side effects in my book are entirely imagined.

6) When you begin a new work, what ignites that initial fire--characters or the plot? Do you know where your story is going or do you allow your characters to intervene? Ever have a problem with a character taking over?

Definitely, the plot, the concept, gets me going. I like to make a short, sketchy outline of how I think the plot might proceed, then let the characters and my imagination do the rest. A character has never “taken over” a book, but, to my delight, they often do unexpected things and will nudge the plot in directions it might not have taken.

7) Ever suffer from writer’s block? What’s your secret for staying motivated? How long does it usually take you complete a book, revisions aside?

Writer’s block has never been a problem for me. Sometimes I feel like a Pavlovian dog--when I see a computer screen, words start to appear. I love that feeling of accomplishment I get after completing a manuscript. Usually, it takes me a year after writing the first word to finish the manuscript and get it to the point where I’m willing to show it to someone.

8) Besides your present genre, what else would you like to write? Do you have a new work in progress? Care to share?

Before I die, I hope to have written a book in every genre I can possibly imagine. I’m working on a young adult novel in which the main character is trying to change the date of Christmas to March 20^th. Another manuscript is a murder mystery written around the sport of curling.