📚 Getting to Know the Author: A Chat with 'The Edison Enigma' Thomas White #AuthorInterview #Interview #TheEdisonEnigma

Periodically we scour the Internet looking for authors who are willing to talk about their professional lives which would be interesting to other writers and up and coming authors. Today, we welcome Thomas White, author of The Edison Enigma.

Thomas White began his career as an actor. Several years later he found himself as an Artistic Director for a theatre in Los Angeles and the winner of several Drama-Logue and Critics awards for directing. As Tom’s career grew, he directed and co-produced the world tour of “The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out Of Their Shells”. The show toured for over two years, was translated into seven different languages and seen by close to a million children. Tom served as President and Creative Director for Maiden Lane Entertainment for 24 years and worked on many large-scale corporate event productions that included Harley Davidson, Microsoft, Medtronic Diabetes, and dozens of others. The Edison Enigma is Tom’s third novel following up Justice Rules which was nominated as a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2010 Literary contest, and The Siren’s Scream.

Author Links

Website | X (Twitter) | Facebook 1 | Facebook 2 | Goodreads

Welcome to The Writer's Life, Tom. Can we begin by telling us how you started your writing career?

Hello and thanks for having me. I started my career as a theatrical director. I’ve. directed dozens of plays and musicals over my life, mostly in Los Angeles and NYC. As a director you are telling a story. In the theatre you use actors and theatrical devises in scenery, staging etc to tell the story. It was a simple transition from showing a story on stage to writing one on the page. What truly facilitated my writing was the advent of the laptop and the fact that I was traveling thousands of mile s year for work. Sitting on a plane for five hours gives you plenty of time to carve out a story. Frank Zappa once produced an album called 200 Motels because that was where he wrote the songs, while on the road and in the hotel rooms. I could call my writing career 100,000 United mIles because that is where I first started to seriously write.

Before that, you were an actor. Can you tell us about that time period in your life?

Actually, there is almost no time prior to me becoming and actor. I started at 14 in high school and pursued it till well into my twenties. I was starring in a production of Butterflies Are Free in LA and we had a very appreciative audience one night. WE received a standing ovation as a matter of fact. After curtain call, I was in my dressing room with the other male actor in the show, who happened to be my best friend, and I was staring in the mirror. He asked me what was wrong, after all we had just gotten a standing ovation. I looked at him and said, “Yeah, I know but I really don’t care.” Not a great attitude for an actor. Consequently I began directing and producing and found mush more joy in creating the show than being a cast member.

Is it a full-time job or do you write as a hobby?

I write as a hobby mostly but hold out hopes of that big best seller, as do we all! At this stage of my life I could imagine nothing better than to spend several hours a day writing and several hours a day refurbishing furniture. I love working with my hands and it also offers me time to think about what I’m writing. With writing and with refurbishing furniture, you have to start out with a plan. That is step one. You have to stay open to changes and new thoughts as you progress through the project but you need a starting place. A piece of furniture that you envision to have a stained wood surface with paint highlights can become a fully painted piece because of wood flaws or whatever. Just as a story that starts out about a nuclear scientist can turn into a father/son retrospective. You just never know until you do it.

Is writing a full-time job now or do you write as a hobby?

Your latest book is The Edison Enigma, an exciting time travel. How did you get interested in writing time travel?

I have always been interested in time travel. The idea of going into the past and witnessing history has always intrigues me. I watch most every time travel TV show and movie that I can. I remember the Time Tunnel from the late 60-’s, Quantum Leap with Scott Bakula and now the new version of Quantum Leap. So many great time travel movies, Somewhere In Time, Time After Time, The Time Travelers Wife, Time and Time Again are all excellent examples of time travel movies as well as novels.

Will there be more books in your future?

I believe there will be more books in my future. I have a new idea rattling around in my head and once I am done with marketing and promoting The Edison Enigma I will begin to put those thoughts together. Without revealing too much, here is the first line, "Valerie could take the divisive tone, the demeaning assaults and even screeching for his coffee, but it was the dismissive attitude that truly weakened her soul.” I’ll leave it to you to figure out where it goes next!