Eye of the Panther

I've been revising an old shapeshifter tale that was inspired some years ago by a call for submissions: A coffee shop within a bookstore.

Could be anything. Horror. Contemporary. Historical. Anything.

It was supposed to be a short story. So I wrote it as a futuristic--heck, even now paperbacks are becoming dinosaurs. At the time I wrote the story, ebooks didn't even exist. So I wrote the short story, sent it in, and got a very curt response back from the editor--Submissions by INVITATION ONLY.

Hmm, it didn't say anything about that in the submission guidelines that were online for everyone to see.

No problem. But no matter what other projects I was working on, this one kept plaguing me. The full story hadn't been told.

I grew up on Star Trek episodes, and so always loved the idea of exploring other worlds. And my son and I played the game Dune based on the book and movie, since I was always dying on my own during the fight scenes. But we ended up battling everything so fast, somehow, that we played ourselves out of the game. Both of us just stared at the game, disbelieving what had happened.

But what I wanted to do more than anything, was not constantly battle the bad guys, but turn the desert planet green. You could do some of that, but I had to quit trying and stop to fight more bad guys.

When I drive through deserts or prairies or meadows--in my mind, I turn them into forests. Must be the wolf in me. :)

But the people on this planet aren't just ordinary humans. They're shapeshifters. The heroine is a panther and her brother a dragon. And the warrior who is forced to come to their aid--think totally reluctant hero--is strictly human. It involves secret scrolls, and potential planet domination, a desert planet that desperately needs some greenery...adventure, action, mystery and romance. The short story evolved into a full length novel!

It needs a lot of formatting and editing work, but when I have the time, I'll be working on getting it ready to publish. The book has never been published before, and never even been sent to any publishers--but it's so different from my other works, I figure it would be better to just upload it myself. :)

So hopefully to come soon--Eye of the Panther, the super title, courtesy of Donna!!!

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