Terry Spear, Guest Blogger

Please join me in giving a warm welcome to author Terry Spear as she returns to Thoughts in Progress as the special guest blogger on her virtual blog tour.

Terry’s latest release is SEDUCED BY THE WOLF, the fifth book in her werewolf series. Thanks to Terry and Danielle at Sourcebooks I have two copies of SEDUCED BY THE WOLF to giveaway to 2 lucky visitors who comment on this post between now and 8 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 26. Be sure to include your e-mail address in your comments if it isn’t included in your profile. Sorry, but the giveaway is only open to residents of the U.S. and Canada.

When Terry isn’t busy writing or making her wonderful Wilde and Woolly Bears, she works full-time in a library. In the past few weeks they have been short staffed at the library so Terry has been putting in some long hours at her other job. She stops by today to tell us about “The Making of a Werewolf Series—the Good, the Bad, and All That Stuff.”

First, thanks so much, Mason, for having me here on your blog today!!! I’m thrilled to be here.

The Good—Once you’ve established a series, you’ve already set the parameters for the world and can have fun expanding on it. What I love to do is to take werewolf legends and show the absurdity of it—from a REAL werewolf’s point of view. It’s kind of like a doctor watching one of those medical shows and shaking his head. Or a forensic scientist who sees one of those Hollywood versions of his profession, and thinks how unreal the scenario really is.
But the thing of it is, my werewolves live in secret. So they can’t tell the world how wrong some mythology is. Instead, they make light of it and live as they do, as they have always done. Now, the good part of a series is that in let’s say HEART OF THE WOLF, that kicks off the series, readers learn only some nuances of the world. As the series expands, new avenues can be explored. Different wolf packs deal with situations in a different way. Just like with humans. Different werewolf personalities will affect packs. What is known, can be altered by that little caveat—there are always exceptions to the rule.

And I base these on real exceptions too. Let’s take the rule that wolves mate for life. For the most part, they do. But in one instance, a wolf had two female mates at the same time. Yep, a bigamist. Since werewolves are half human, that side of their personality can influence their wolf half. So in DESTINY OF THE WOLF, I show this subversion to the natural werewolf order of choosing a mate for life.

The good is in not having to create a world each time, since it’s already mostly established. But the bad in that is that readers could get bored if it’s the same old world, much like any world, contemporary, historical, or otherwise. Same place, same people, too much sameness. Begins to sound like the same plot.

So the bad—yet good, too—is coming up with something different, yet still set within the parameters of the world I have built.

I’ve set HEART OF THE WOLF, TO TEMPT THE WOLF, and SEDUCED BY THE WOLF in Oregon. But I set TO TEMPT THE WOLF on the Oregon coast to give it a different feel. The other two I set near Portland, but I’ve still described other places, like Forest Park, which is a huge Portland park. And LEGEND OF THE WHITE WOLF was set in Maine to give the

feel of a winter wonderland. DESTINY OF THE WOLF and WOLF FEVER are set in Silver Town, Colorado. But with DREAMING OF THE WOLF (Set for release in Fall 2011), I wanted a little different location in Colorado, so it begins in Breckenridge where I used to love to ski. And HEART OF THE HIGHLAND WOLF (Coming Spring 2011) was a new adventure into the world of Highland werewolves in Scotland.

By setting them in other areas, I have to do a lot more research. But on the other hand, it gives readers new places to visit too. 

The other good thing about writing a series is that many of the characters are established and so it’s easy to build on them. The bad thing is I have to go back and reread their roles in earlier books to make sure they’re still the same character in future books. The good thing about that is I love rereading them anyway! It gives me the opportunity to fall in love with their characters all over again.

The bad thing about a series is trying to come up with different plots so that they don’t all sound the same. So this is what I’ve done so far:
    HEART OF THE WOLF (Book 1)—Love Triangle, introduced the werewolf world, Reunion.
    DESTINY OF THE WOLF (Book 2)—werewolf run town, mate who goes against the traditional mating rule.
   TO TEMPT THE WOLF (Book 3)—alpha pack leader whose pack mutinies, sister runs off, finds himself half dead on a beach in the arms of a beautiful human (1st one with a human heroine).
   LEGEND OF THE WHITE WOLF (Book 4)—both hero and heroine begin the story as humans, introduction of human werewolf killers.
  SEDUCED BY THE WOLF (Book 5)—first story with an omega wolf, hero dealing with an abused pack, heroine who prefers being with wolves rather than werewolf kind.
  WOLF FEVER (Book 6, Dec. 2010)—first story where the heroine is psychic and dealing with werewolf changes, ramifications of viral warfare on a pack.
   HEART OF THE HIGHLAND WOLF (Book 7, June 2011)—first story of a Highland pack which introduces my love of my Highland ancestors, and the first “poor” werewolf—which was suggested by one of my co-workers!
  DREAMING OF THE WOLF (Book 8, 2011)—work in progress….can’t say! Some werewolf stuff is just plain secretive!
So the good in establishing a series is that readers can expect adventure, romance, mystery, and a unique world of wolves and werewolves with a subtle sense of humor.

The bad news is I can’t write them fast enough for readers’ expectations. But the good news is that fans want more!

And the best news is that fans are always telling me either who they’d like to see more of, or what elements of the world I’ve created that intrigues them most. From that, I love to spin new tales!

Thanks again, Mason, for having me!
If you were reading the series, where would you like the next werewolf tale to take place? And who do you want to see have a story too?

Terry, thanks so much for guest blogging here again. Your werewolf series has been quite intriguing and I'm looking forward to reading WOLF FEVER (I just got it). It is so much more than just a paranormal romance. As for me, I’d love to see werewolves in Georgia. We do have mountains and forests they could roam in.

Here’s a brief synopsis of SEDUCED BY THE WOLF that arrived in bookstores the first of this month. “His first priority is to protect his pack…
Werewolf pack leader Leidolf Wildhaven has just taken over a demoralized pack. With rogue wolves on the loose causing havoc and the authorities from the zoo suddenly zeroing in on the local wolf population, the last thing he needs in his territory is a do-gooder female, no matter how beautiful and enticing she is…

She’ll do anything to help wolves…
Biologist Cassie Roux has dedicated her life to protecting wolves in the wild. On a desperate mission to help a she-wolf with newborn pups, the last thing Cassie needs right now is a nosy and entirely too attractive werewolf pack leader trying to track her down…

With rogue wolves and hunters threatening at every turn, Cassie and Leidolf may find their attraction the most dangerous force of all…”

Now a little background on Terry. A retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves, Terry has an MBA from Monmouth College. An eclectic writer, she dabbles in the paranormal as well as writing historical and true life stories for both teen and adult audiences. Spear lives in Crawford, Texas. For more information, please visit Terry at these various places on the web:
www.terryspear.com
http://www.wickedlyromantic.blogspot.com/
http://casablancaauthors.blogspot.com/
http://fierceromance.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/terry.spear
http://shapeshifterromance.wordpress.com/
http://terry-spear.blogspot.com/