📚 A Bookish Chat with 'The Siren's Scream' Author Thomas White | Author Interview | #AuthorInterview #BlogTour #Interview

Today we welcome Thomas White to The Writer's Life e-Magazine! Thomas is the author of the novel, The Siren's Scream. This interview is part of his The Siren's Scream Blog Tour by Pump Up Your Book. Enjoy!

Thomas White began his career as an actor. Several years later he found himself as an Artistic Director for a theatre in Southern California 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 over 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 Siren’s Scream is Tom’s second novel that follows up Justice Rules which was nominated as a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2010 Literary contest.

Tom’s latest book is the mystery/horror, The Siren’s Scream.

Visit his website at www.thomas-white-author.com or connect with him at Facebook.

Welcome to The Writer's Life! Now that your book has been published, we’d love to find out more about the process. Can we begin by having you take us at the beginning? When did you come up with the idea to write your book?

Thomas: Quite honestly, it is often the simplest of things that will set you off on a path. That was exactly the case with ‘The Siren’s Scream’. While sitting on a dock at a mountain cabin on a lake, I saw a small school of fish swimming beneath. A slight altercation between several of them caused one to flip over and scoot away. As the fish flipped, I saw the colors of its belly reflect in the sun and I was mesmerized. The idea of a creature living in the water began to blossom. Now, there is nothing original there, the legend of the mermaid is long and fabled and I struggled with the concept of creating an original take on the creature, a viable storyline, and how to present it in an intriguing manner for a few years. Then, at a family gathering, dealing with a particularly challenging sister, it occurred to me these creatures had an origin, a family, a lineage, a past; they had to come from somewhere, right? Once I began to explore that concept, one thing led to the other and the story began to take shape.

TWL: Can you give us a short excerpt?

Thomas: Momentarily the light began to change. A flash zipped by the window teasing him with a glimpse.

Henry smiled.

The sunlight streaking through the pool began to revolve on its axis and change in hue like an underwater disco ball. The streaks became different colors. There was a vivacious blood red, a brilliant pine green, a yellow so bright it hurt to look at it. A deep blue streak set itself off against the blue of the water and made the water look muted and lifeless by comparison.

There was another flash, and the room was suddenly filled with colors bouncing around the cavern like pool balls after the break. Henry reveled in it.

He pulled his face away from the glass, leaving an almost perfect outline of his profile where the condensation had accumulated. He moved to the far end of the window. There, a steel cover, much like the hatch found on the top of a submarine, securely covered a quiet little pool of water, only three feet across. This hatch was an entrance, a passageway in and out of the pool from the chamber. The chamber itself was an airlock that allowed direct access into the deepest portions of the pool, hence the double-door entryway. With no escape for the air, the room maintained a positive pressure that kept the water from flowing into the chamber, creating, in essence, an erotic air pocket. Henry grabbed the two levers that secured the hatch in place and opened them. Lifting the gun metal hatch, color began to shoot out from this smaller pool. Henry giggled like a schoolboy caught peeking into the girl’s bathroom.

The water started to twirl. It became a whirlpool running counterclockwise. It twirled faster and faster, opening a funnel in the center. From the center of this funnel, a head appeared, and she rose slowly out of the water.

She was here: Henry’s vision of holiness. Roxanne to his Cyrano, this lovely creature rose full out of the water and beckoned for him. She floated in front of him, a testament to absolute beauty. She was naked from the waist up, and her long, flowing hair hung down well past her waist. Her breasts were full and firm, and rivulets of water ran between them. Henry caught his breath as she stood before him, and he fell into her as if she were his grave.

TWL: What part of the book was the most fun to write?

Thomas: The ending. I thought I had finally finished the novel and had submitted it to the editor for final corrections and revisions. While that process was taking place I happened to be watching a show on TV, don't remember which one, and one of the characters said, "The devil has no friends." I chuckled to myself and replied, "That's not true, fire is the devil's only friend." And then my thought process led me to an inevitable conclusion, fire...devil... Damn!!! I have to burn the mansion." (Sorry, spoiler alert) I went back and re-wrote the final 6 chapters and when I was finished I was quite satisfied. This ending was vastly superior.

TWL: What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?

Thomas: This was actually my first novel. I wrote it many years ago and it ended up being what I called, my practice novel. Not too long ago I pulled it out and re-read it. I really liked the story but it was so poorly written it was hard to follow. I started to clean it up and one thing led to another.

TWL: What other books are you working on and when will they be published?

Thomas: I have one previously published novel, Justice Rules. It was a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest. 2800 submissions and 8 finalists.

TWL: Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?

Thomas: Don't mess with Mother Nature!!! Just kidding. This is not really a message book. It's a story and the reader can take from it whatever message they can glean.

TWL: Do you have any final words?

Thomas: I have found that writing novels is the hardest thing I have ever done. You never finish a novel, you just stop working on it. Whenever I think that I am done, I will have someone read it and they inevitably ask that one question that sets my mind going and suddenly I see an entirely different, and usually better, direction to take the story. You have to trust this feeling and go with it. I hate it when people say, "Well, the book wrote itself." but in reality, there are those times when that does happen. Learning to listen to that voice in the back of your head and being willing to kill your children to move in that direction is essential. Cutting sections of what you wrote is always difficult but totally necessary. I always view these cuts as the road that took me to the eventual outcome and although they didn't make the final journey, they were essential in making it to our destination. And finally, if you want to write, then write. You can change something, you can't change nothing, write, then rewrite, then rewrite again.

Title: The Siren’s Scream
Author: Thomas White
Publisher: Savvy Books
Pages: 492
Genre: Mystery/Horror

Blurb:

An old mansion sits atop of a cliff, overlooking the ocean, in Santa Cruz, CA. A young realtor, Darcy Wainwright, manages to sell the dilapidated old house to Henry Childs, an obese nebbish who is obsessed with the property. In the backyard is a pool. Not an ordinary pool but a giant tide pool. In the tide pool is a siren with an evil agenda for revenge.

The Thornton Mansion was a talisman for the death and mystery that surrounded it. Unoccupied for years until Henry Childs was summoned by the house. As directed, he reached out to unsuspecting, novice realtor Darcy Wainwright. Darcy finds herself intricately involved with the house, its history and the haunting tide pool that filled the backyard. It was the pool that beckoned her, and it was the pool that would decide if she lives or dies. The Siren’s Scream. Available on Amazon.