So Anthony, where do you get your ideas for a book?

Many places. I may be watching a TV show, reading a magazine or just listening to music and I'll get an idea. Then I ask myself the "What if..." question. If I can't research the what if question right away I'll write it down and keep it for another time. I think everyone who wants to be an author has to be open to all kinds of information to feed their ideas.

Very true, so what inspired the idea for Absence of Faith?

I had just finished my first novel and my wife and I were discussing ideas for another book when we came up with this question: "What if you took away a person's faith, their belief and hope for the future and what if you could convince them that God had abandoned them what would they do?"

It's a universal question, but when I started to think about it, faith and religion are what holds us together as a civilization. Without it there would be chaos.

We were also discussing the near-death experience her father had after being hit by a car. His was a positive one, but after I researched near-death experiences, I found there were negative ones also. So the negative near-death experiences served as the vehicle to take away people's faith and beliefs in Absence of Faith. And I used the setting of a highly religious small town in New Jersey to make the plot more plausible. The town really exists and its residents are highly religious.

That would leave the playing field wide-open. How did you nail down a direction for the plot?

The characters. I created sets of characters - a doctor and his wife and just the opposite, a young girl and her new boyfriend who are laid back, go with the flow types. The doctor has doubts about his confidence and what he really believes in; the young girl is strong-willed and searching for herself. Her boyfriend is pure evil and serves as the antagonist that fuels the plot.

I had some idea of how the plot should go, but then I would ask if the characters would do such and such a thing in a given situation. The characters and how they would react in a given situation formed the plot.

So, you’re saying the characters create the plot for you. How does that work?

Each character has unique qualities and traits and when you put that character into a specific situation, he or she will react in a certain way. If you have a character that is very stubborn and you put him in a situation where he is faced with a multiple of decisions, he will most likely pick the decision that he knows works rather than the right decision. His actions then drive the plot forward. For every action there is a reaction.

Staying in character creates the plot… Interesting concept. So why did you write this book?

I thought it was an interesting question, the what if question and in writing the book I discovered that faith and religion are very important elements of the human experience.

Bestselling author and psychic Sylvia Browne writes in her book, Prophecy, that, "...our beliefs are the driving force behind our behavior, our opinions, our actions. Without faith, without our beliefs, we're lost."

That being said, I wrote the book in the hopes that all the religious denominations and sects in the world would tolerate each other and work together to improve the human condition.

Wow! Changing the world, one person at a time, through your book. Do you think you have a bestseller?

I hope so, but it's not up to me. The market will decide and of course I hope they like it.
Every author believes they have a bestseller, but the truth will be known when people read it and recommend it to others.

In light of all the interest in spirituality and religion that was spawned by The DaVinci Code and other books, my book may be of interest. It is about the affirmation of faith; it doesn’t matter what religion you practice or what you believe in as long as you have faith in something. This is the message I hope people will come away with after reading Absence of Faith.

Have you written other novels?

Yes. Dark End of the Spectrum, which will be out in mid May, is high-tech thriller about hackers who take over the US power grid and cell phone network and hold the US hostage. It's based on actual events and years of research into the hacker culture and their activities. I am also writing two other novels.

That sounds loaded with suspense. What are your goals as a novelist?

I hope to be accepted as a novelist and that people will come away with a new outlook on life, be inspired, entertained, enlightened in their lives and be able to live better lives.

Those goals are noteworthy and inspiring in themselves. What advice would you give to upcoming writers?

Never give up if you truly want to be an author. It’s a tough road, but every published author I know goes down the same road and has a bag full of disappointment, self-doubt, and loss of purpose. Just keep writing.