The White Room

Anyone  who’s been around me in the past several years has probably heard me talk about “The White Room.” The White Room is a manuscript I began way back in 2006. It’s a vampire novel that touches on addiction, family loyalty, redemption, and even dabbles a little in BDSM.

In 2006, the idea struck me, and I immediately began writing it. However, I got a virus on my computer ~ the clap, I think ~ and in those days didn’t realize the importance of backing up my material. I ended losing close to 100 pages of progress. After a nine month period of being too devastated to even think about it, I began it again, and managed to get it completed in about four months. I probably got through it so fast because I met an agent from New York who had taken an interest in the idea… so I wrote my ass off to get it to her by the end of 2010.

She didn’t take it. And neither did about 150 other literary agents. It did, however, receive a fair deal of interest from several houses and agents, and after some very almost-acceptances and a little constructive feedback that I agreed with, I realized that underneath it all, there was a very good story in there.

Then, in 2012 Beautiful Monster was accepted for publication. Everything came to a bit of a halt then as the focus became edits and deadlines. I was swept away with elation, and I enjoyed every minute of it… but my mind kept going back to one place: The White Room. I don’t know what it is about this book, but I just can’t seem to let go of it. Don’t get me wrong, I love Beautiful Monster and I will always be very proud of it. But The White Room… I refuse to die until this book gets published. It’s special… and it has the potential to be very good. It means something to me that I can’t explain.

So, I got honest with myself and took a hard, long look at the manuscript. There were some problems. Loose ends. Unneccessary characters. Events that lead nowhere, and perhaps most of all, this was not the kind of story I could tell in the first person point of view ~ which is what I had done up till that point. There were too many layers and angles of approach to limit the storyline with one perspective. So… I learned how to write third person real fast.

There were two agents and 2 houses that outright offered to take this book if I did some serious re-writes, and a small handful of folks who’ve basically said, “Sounds interesting. Polish that bitch up and we’ll give her a look-see.” I am paraphrasing, of course, but you get my drift.

Naturally, I knew this book needed to be written, and, well, entirely re-written. So that’s what I’ve done, and I am currently approaching the half-way mark. It’s a very different animal than it was the first time around, but I have been adamant that it’s integrity remain intact.

Currently, due to time restraints, I have put The White Room on a temporary hold. I’ve done this because I was asked to collaborate with Tamara Thorne… by Tamara herself, and well, you don’t say no to something like that. And I simply can not juggle two projects right now. But we are having a blast on our current project and are hoping to have it finished by the year’s end.

And I will, after this, go back to The White Room.

The reason I say all this is because a few weeks ago, I was asked to take part in “Flash Fiction Friday” on Deadly Ever After… and I chose an excerpt from The White Room  as my piece. I have never shared any of this story online before, and even though what is posted is far from the final draft, I feel good about exposing a little piece of this story.

Thank you, Julie Hutchings, and everyone else at Deadly Ever After for asking me to participate.

To check it out, follow this link: http://deadlyeverafter.com/2013/10/18/flash-fiction-friday-the-white-room-excerpt-from-alistair-cross/ and be sure to give these guys a follow. They rock.

Have a spooktacular weekend and such.

Till next time…

~AC~