Terry Spear's Blog, page 442

Heart of the Highland Tour Coming Up!

I wish I could offer everyone a bonny trip to Scotland, or a real Highland hunk, but here's the next best thing!

If you have a big review site and want to include me in a tour for May or June--let me know. My publicist, Danielle, says she will offer two books for the US/Canada for your readers!!! So contact me and I'll set up a date.



If you are a fan--well, stay tuned, my days are numbered... I mean....I'll be fast and furiously writing blogs about the hunky Highlanders to share with you, hoping to hear from everyone, so you can have a chance to win the latest release! Book 7--Heart of the Highland Wolf is coming June 1!!!

Hope you all have a terrific Saturday!

HEART OF THE JAGUAR is 1/9th of the way done. We have to begin somewhere! :)

Off to work!

Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male."
www.terryspear.com

Pets in Stories?

Have you ever read a story where a pet takes over a story? Or really adds to the story? Makes the characters more ... human?

Who would have ever thought wolves would have pets?

But there are numerous cases where predator and prey live happily together. :)

These big sleepy canines are Irish Wolfhounds and they actually killed wolves, not the other way around. But in Heart of the Highland Wolf, they're the MacNeill clan's pets. Why?

Those who had more money could afford to have hunting dogs in days of old. In this case, the Irish used wolfhounds to unseat English knights from their horses.

Since the MacNeills started out in Ireland, that was the reason for their having the wolfhounds. But through the ages, they've always been the best of companions.



It's already April 1st, no fooling, and June is just around the corner! Get ready for hunky Highland wolves!!! :)

Hope you have a delightful TGIF. I'm going to try and get some new tires on my car today before I have none on the highway...and have lunch with an author friend. But for now? It's time to get back to big jungle cats!

So what kind of pet would a jaguar cat have???

Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male."
www.terryspear.com

I Saw a REAL Live Piranha Yesterday!

Well, a real dead piranha actually! How fortunate for me that one of my coworkers had a sister who was in Peru just a week or so ago, visited the Amazon Jungle, brought home native pipes, and other hand decorated items, and a "stuffed" piranha for her brother. I say stuffed, but it looked more dehydrated, flat and skinny and evil eyed with wickedly razor sharp teeth.

Think of swimming with a whole school of them!

Now, in The Highland Wolf in Paradise, I wrote about schools of colorful fish nibbling on the heroine's legs because in the islands, they do. But think of piranha nibbling on your legs and it's a whole different scenario!

Yes, welcome to my world of jaguars!!! Not exactly paradise! :)

Off to get ready for the day...

Anyone want to take a trip into the Amazon? Fish for piranha? There are excursions for both!

Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male."
www.terryspear.com

Working under Pressure?

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Do you get more done when you're working under pressure? Or do you do better when you don't have deadlines looming?

For me, I work better under pressure, with deadlines looming (often of my own making) and set goals to get stuff done. I really HATE to procrastinate!

SOLD!!! LOVING THE HIGHLAND ROGUE is going to be contracted with my historical publisher...3rd in the medieval historical series. This one is the middle brother's story. He has such a way with the ladies....

Which means??? More pressure! Woohoo! I love it!

When I have more deadlines, I stay more focused!

Speaking of focused, got to get ready for work.

What about you? Pressure or no pressure work best for you?

Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male."
www.terryspear.com

The Finished Cover--Heart of the Highland Wolf!

Woohoo, it's coming!!! Isn't it gorgeous? He's gorgeous! Just how I'd envision Ian MacNeill! And all his hunky brothers! Oh, and it won't have those black boxes around the words. When I converted it from PDF to JPEG, that's how it showed up, but in the PDF version, they're not there. :)

I was sick all day Saturday and under the weather yesterday and still not feeling all that well today, but don't have enough coverage at work to take off sick...

But, even so, I finished The Highland Wolf in Paradise and sent it off to my editor on Saturday, AND wrote the first chapter and part of the 2nd for Heart of the Jaguar!

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I listened to jaguars growl, the sounds of the Amazon jungle, read and read and read about the Amazon and about jaguars and started the story...

I'll have to see what my critique partners say first, but so far, I'm loving it!

Okay, off to work! Wrote until late, got up late, and I'm totally thrown off my schedule. It's a Monday....

Have a super Monday!

Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male."
www.terryspear.com

Time to Research Jaguars!

I have finished and sent off THE HIGHLAND WOLF IN PARADISE to my editor!!! Woohoo! I had so much fun writing Duncan's story--he's the youngest brother, the dark warrior, from HEART OF THE HIGHLAND WOLF (coming Jun 1). On a mission, he intends to find get their stolen money back from Sal Silverman--only he catches a whiff of a female wolf at the airport at the Grand Cayman Islands...and that's all she wrote... :)

Normally once I've finished a wolf book, I'd just jump right in to start my new wolf book. (Actually, I've already started Tom's story.) But this time, I have to start on the new jaguar shifter. Which means it's time to research them. Thanks to Donna for sending me some info and the picture above.

I was watching some videos photographed in the Amazon on jaguars. And I've been reading up on them...just like I did with wolves. I keep seeing the hero pacing as a jaguar...wonder where the heroine is--see her, see her surprise at seeing him.

:) I keep coming up with different scenarios of why she's there, why he's there, how they meet, and what the trouble is for both...and all that neat stuff.

It's fun starting a new series. It has all kinds of neat possibilities. Until I begin to build my new world--the possibilities are wide open. But once I start the first book--that's it! Because once the world is set up a certain way, I can't deviate from that world from book to book. :) Sure, there can be exceptions, just like there are in any REAL world. But in general, the world can't change at whim, or through forgetfulness. :) Me forget my world? Nah. LOL

Just think--what if my wolves, who upon death, revert to their human form if they were a wolf upon death (that's because in the werewolf literature I read in days of old always showed their world that way)...then if in one story I didn't do this--could I?

Of course! BUT I'd have to show a darned good reason why. :)

So if a jaguar shifter dies, what happens?

Well, the world is new, wide open, I can do whatever I want with this series. But what if I kept it the same as the werewolf world? What if any shifter would end up in the same way?

I think there was a black panther movie that I saw where when the shifter died, he became human again. But I can't remember for sure.

Or, I could do the opposite. Which would be more intriguing? More difficult to deal with? Which would work better for the story?

Essentially that's the key. What works better for the story? Or in this case, the series.

So I'm off on a big cat adventure--and to start the new series.

It's a challenge--but I'm excited to get started. Have you started any new projects lately--that make you wonder where you're going next?

My garden makes me wonder that all the time!

Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male."
www.terryspear.com

Imagination--Where Does It Come from?

I wonder why some have an imagination, and some do not. Is it inborn? Something triggered early in our childhoods? Something inspired by reading? Or something else?

When I was at work the other day, a fan said she had written nonfiction work, but she didn't have the imagination to write fiction like I do. How do I create worlds like I do?

I'm not sure exactly where it comes from--but as a child I LOVED to read mythologies and folktales from around the world. I enjoyed ghost stories and true stories. I was very eclectic in my reading habits. Just like I love to write in a variety of venues.

My dad told us stories as I was growing up--spooky fictional tales and true tales of adventure. I imagined crossing the causeways between the rest of Florida and Merritt Island where we lived--imagined the dark things lurking in the dark waters beneath the bridges. Imagined the creepy things in the swamps I explored. When I was living as a child in Sacramento, I drove my car to the elementary school, and carefully parked it in a parking space. My car being a bicycle.

I played with cars and the old fashioned yesteryear cars were the men and the modern day sleeker models, the women. :) I've always seen romance in a variety of situations, I guess!

And I played with dolls--oh yes, Ken and Barbie, and the kids. The baby dolls too.

But no matter what I did--exploring the huge culverts that would take away the flood of water when we had too much rain in Sacramento (and actually drowned a couple of children--so my parents told us never, ever to play in them) and the swamps and sand dunes around our home...sailing on the Banana River in Florida and boating on the lakes in California--all of it helped to foster an active imagination.

I've always told stories, made up stories, thrived on stories. :)

What about you?

Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male."
www.terryspear.com

RITA and GOLDEN HEART Calls on the Way!

Okay, so after having nightmares about work for two days, I've got to quit doing this!!!

Today is the big RITA/GOLDEN HEARTS finalists day--calls are going out--the lists will be clogged with congratulations, there will be merriment in the air. I'll be at work--thinking about workly things. LOL

I've only entered books since last year for the published RITA. Never entered the GOLDEN HEART because I kept thinking I needed to write a book really well before I entered. :) And then I sold two teen novels and couldn't enter.

Of course the books I sold also were with the publisher who closed down the YA line before they were published. Which meant that they never were up for sale (Scratch that--one is up on Amazon--Ghostly Liaisons, but



I'm revising it and will put it up again--only this time it really will be for sale).

So I was a published author and an unpublished author in a span of two years. :)

But once you're "published" even though I hadn't been, you can't go back to being unpublished according to GOLDEN HEART rules.

Which meant? Darn it...I had to get published AGAIN!!! And then I could enter the RITA.

And show them that make the rules. LOL

In truth, I don't imagine I'll final, but it's like any gamble. If you don't make the effort, you won't fail, but you won't ever have the chance to win either.

And that's the same with publishing work. If you don't send out your work, you won't have to worry about rejection. But you won't ever find a home to publish with either.

Do you ever take a chance at something and win?

Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male."
www.terryspear.com

Dreaming of the Wolf...

One of the things that makes it feel real that you have a new release really coming out is when it's finally listed on Amazon!!!

There's no gorgeous hunky cover yet. No description yet even. But it's up there now. :)

I've been checking for a while. But nothing. Then when I got home, a Google alert! Dreaming of the Wolf on Amazon!

Jake Silver doesn't believe in fate or dream mating, despite the fact his brother and other family members have been afflicted with this strange notion. But when dreams begin to plague him about a woman so seductive, he wakes up in a sweat and he's losing way too much sleep over it, he seeks to learn the truth. Can dream mating be a reality? Is the woman real?

Alicia Greiston doesn't dream. Not ever. So when a man visits her in the first dream she's ever had, she's startled, pleased, then alarmed. He's not going away, and the dreams take a sinister turn. He's in trouble, and if the dreams are a foreshadowing of the future, she has to save him.

Anyway, I was excited!!!

Also, Huntress for Hire is going up sometime tomorrow. :) Hope you love it! I have the sequel started if I didn't lose it in the tons of crashes I've had!!!

Available now at Smashwords, coming soon to Amazon and B&N.

He's a hunter turned vampire, she's a huntress of vampires—he's needs her cooperation to free his family; she's trained to kill his kind.

Rebel vampire huntress Rachael Bremerton wants revenge against Piaras, one of the most ruthless vampires in Dallas , for the murder of her parents. But when she's lured by another vampire, Adonis, into the darkness—the same darkness she's feared since she was a child—she's torn between her huntress sensibilities and some strange desire to be with the creature she's meant to despise and destroy.

Adonis, a hunter turned vampire, has been ordered by Piaras to bring Rachel to him untouched. In return, Piaras will release Adonis's family unharmed. But when Adonis first sees Rachael, his hunter desire to have a huntress mate kicks in, or is it the dark heart of the vampire that makes him crave her so?

Turning Rachel over to Piaras becomes less of an option. But can he find a way to free his family, claim Rachael for his own, and keep her family from discovering he is a hunter turned vampire—a creature they will all feel obligated to hunt down and kill?

I had a lot of fun writing this story! What would you do if you were a huntress and the most intriguing vampire ever caught your eye???

Off to work...It's Thursday, late night, but then it's Friday--TGIF!!!

Hope you all have a terrific Thursday...

Terry

"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male."

www.terryspear.com

More and More and More!

I'll be working on edits to Huntress for Hire soon, a vampire romantic suspense I wrote a long time ago, that needs some reVAMPing (couldn't help myself) and hope to have it up before the end of the year. I'm also working on another vampire romance--Dangerous Liaisons, which I might change the title of--which is the sequel to Deadly Liaisons, where Atreides has his own bout with an interesting and troublesome huntress. :) It has a long ways to go--about a 1/4 of the way done.

And I received another couple of bear orders yesterday while I was at work from a lady who's ordered them for years from me but I hadn't done any for a couple of years for her, so that was a surprise!

And I volunteered to review some works for the well respected fantasy publisher TOR site...I used to do reviews of authors' works for another great site, but the published authors that were running it found it too much to manage. But it's great fun and I'm looking forward to doing it every so often. It's not like I don't read lots of books in between writing my own!!!

And...I will be reading over Heart of the Highland Wolf one more time before I send it off to my editor this weekend, and will begin the opening of the first of the jaguar stories.



Now--in Heart of the Wolf, I had that both hero and heroine were wolves. The same with the second book, Destiny of the Wolf.

With this one, I'm leaning more toward the heroine being strictly human. And he's the one who is a jaguar. What do you all think?

Do you ever feel you could do more each day??? I think I'll soon reach my limit! Or not! :)

Okay, off to do some more writing before I have to ship bears at the post office!

Have a terrific Tuesday!!!

Terry
"Giving new meaning to the term alpha male."
www.terryspear.com