When Old Ideas Turn Into New Books

For once, I'm able to contribute to this month's theme! The book I'm finalizing at the moment - Tales of the Were: Grif - started off as an idea way back in 2005 or so. I wrote a good portion of it - probably somewhere around 30,000 words or more - and then let it sit while I did other things.

Maybe I got "stuck". Maybe I just got busy with dragons or aliens or whatever. I can't really recall anymore. Suffice to say, the book sat. And sat. And SAT. Unloved. Unfinished. Unfortunate.

But always in the back of my mind, there were these characters and this situation. A werecougar Alpha who had just sustained terrible loss in his family, and his little sister, both seeking the solace of the mountains to try to heal. And a woman. A human who knew about shapeshifters, who had a debt of family honor to settle.

I wrote about them in other books. I used members of the werecougar family in other stories, all the while knowing there was this older brother out there and all this tragedy in the family's past. I knew these people. I wanted so badly to finish their story, but after so much time had passed, I really wasn't sure how to go about it.

Then, last Christmas, I started self-publishing some of my paranormal stories. The first was Tales of the Were: Rocky, a novella I had written for an anthology call years before. The story was ultimately turned down and my editor at the time wanted me to expand it into a novel. I never quite got around to it before that editor left and I had this great story sitting on my hard drive for years.

I finally polished it up and added to it. I turned it into the story I had really wanted to write originally, but was constrained by the terms of the anthology call to change. I gave Rocky new life and sent him out there, into the world, to see what people might think of my werebear creation.

The response was like nothing I ever expected.

I had figured on just self-publishing the story for my own enjoyment. And maybe for those few, die-hard fans who might like to know where Rocky - a character who had a bit of a cameo role in my book Lords of the Were - had come from and what had happened to him after we first meet him in Lords.

Rocky's book led to a new character. A mysterious shifter named Slade. I was enchanted by him and wanted to know more about him. I sat down and wrote his story in January and February, then published it in March of this year as Tales of the Were: Slade. He was an entirely new character who had come from that "old" book about Rocky.

And then I started to realize how I might circle back around to Griffon Redstone - the werecougar Alpha I had started to write about so many years ago. I finally understood how and where his story fit in among the others I had been writing all this time. Not only that, but I realized where his brothers' stories fit as well.

And now I've started work on a 5-book sub-series of werecougar tales revolving around the Redstone Clan of cougar shifters. The first story - the one I started work on all those years ago - will be out later this month and is called Tales of the Were: Grif (Redstone Clan #1). I know that's a bit of a mouthful, but I'm not sure how else to clarify that this story fits firmly under the Tales of the Were series, but is part of its own little sub-series of 5 stories - one for each brother in the Redstone family.

The first book is, of course, about Grif, the eldest of the five brothers. It is the same story I began so long ago, but I finally know how to end it! There will be other books, later this year, for Mag and his vampire mate, Steve, Bobcat, and the ever-popular Matt, who was also featured in my book Sweeter Than Wine.

It's been a long time coming, but I feel like I'm finally on the track to fulfilling the promise of that story I began writing so long ago. The old idea is new and the "new" ideas that helped me finally finish this story have made it blossom into something I never really expected. I hope you'll enjoy the ride as much as I will!

Tales of the Were: Grif will be releasing in ebook in late May on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords. It will release in print in June. Look for it to arrive on iTunes, Kobo, and other fine ebook and print retail sites mid-June. For more information, please visit www.biancadarc.com.

Feral

I have a new book on sale. There are actually a number of great books now available at My Bookstore and More, including a cowboy anthology featuring, among others, Lorelei James, and a historical m/m romance by Charlie Cochrane.

Feral is a shifter romance, two men, one a cougar shifter, one a wolf. So one's a loner and one's used to being part of pack.

Here's the blurb:

Seduction is his only chance for freedom…and love is a death sentence.

Even among shifters, Ethan is a rare breed. So rare, he’s spent the last eight years in hiding from the werewolves who once captured and tortured him. Now a tranq dart has cut short his feral existence. Waking in human form in a locked room is more than a living nightmare…it’s reliving his worst one.

Yet in the troubled eyes of one of his captors, he senses a weak link. One he can use to escape—by seducing his jailer.

Bram’s life as pack omega isn’t easy. As long as he obeys his alpha he is protected. However, there are some things he just can’t bring himself to do. Keeping a precious cougar shifter prisoner is one of them, especially one who has somehow managed to capture his heart.

Setting Ethan free could be a death sentence for both of them, for Bram’s pack doesn’t take betrayal lightly. And the alpha is set on revenge.

Read an excerpt here.

Here a cat, there a cat, everywhere a Werecat

I love cats. I love their sounds, their touch, the subtle brush of their tail as they stalk past on quiet feet. Beings of quiet mystery, they entertain me and stimulate my creativity just being around them.

Cats are the masters of passive aggresive. When they want attention, they're just as likely to use a cold shoulder and a turned back to get it as to jump in your lap and headbutt you into a cuddle.
Family allergies have made us a dog house, and though I adore dogs as well it is a different love. A more boisterous, in your face, I'll lick you until you pay attention to me sort of love.

When I sat down to write my first shapeshifter story, I didn't even debate what sort of animal my Chimaga would be shifting into for their moonlit runs. The cougar jumped into my mind, and from the first few sentances I knew who these people were. Their animals were a part of them from the beginning.

I need to find a way out─now! The desperate thought chased Nilana through the night.

Behind her, she sensed the pair of cougars drawing closer. The warrior and the shaman hunted her tirelessly, their paws passing without sound over the rock-strewn canyon bottom. *

Different cultures had werecat folklore from before written history. These were fables and stories based on the cats native to a particular land. In Asia, there were tigers - portrayed as a cattle eating sorcerer in India, and a protective spirit in Malasia. European werecats were more often giant housecats, and usually considered witches. And the Americas, long before Columbus, had were-jaguars and were-cougars.

Today werecats have become a thing of fiction. In movies (Sleepwalkers and Night Watch), TV (Manimal), and books (the Anita Blake series, The Southern Vampire series), shapeshifting cats take the center stage. They entertain, they thill, and they appeal to a purely animalistic side of their fans.

And to me, there's nothing like that quiet moment when feline eyes meet your own in an unblinking stare of mysterious communication. I'll never know what is going on behind those beautiful eyes. But they're an endless source of inspiration and wonder.

*Excert from Hunting the Huntress, coming January 8, 2008 from Samhain Publishing

Help With Movie Names

I figure my interest in shapeshifters, particularly wolves and cougars, started early. There are two movies from my childhood and I'd love to know what they were named. So, does anyone recognize either of these movies? They were probably released in the 70s.

1. My recall on this one is very thin. Nevertheless. The movie starts and a cougar is being hunted down. They manage to tree the cougar and it's not looking good for the big cat. Then the movie flashes back and most of it is about how they reached this point in time (and why, I suppose.) Now, I think this was a Disney movie and the cougar survives, but I'm not sure.
2. • Opening has a wolf on the run from a helicopter or low flying plane. She's shot. :(
   • Trapper/man of the north/burly oldish guy finds 3-5 orphaned wolf pups and raises them. Grown wolves eventually leave man and make their way in the wild. Man is kinda lonely.
   • At the end the man is attacked by a bear. Out of the blue, the wolves appear to save the man's life. (I found this scene powerful at the time.)
   • No doubt other stuff happened or it would have been quite a short film.

So, any takers? Does anyone remember seeing movies of this sort?