The Case of the Wandering Wolves is actually one of my oldest stories. Back when I was finishing up writing my Dragon's Hoard Series, I took some time to figure out what was next on the agenda. I eventually came up with a curious coyote and the mate that ran away. It was supposed to be a cute detective story with a little angst and a lot of romance. I wanted it to top at about 25k words, just a little shorter than each Dragon's Hoard book. I started working on Wandering Wolves immediately and I was just as quickly distracted. Road to Revenge was percolating, as were a half-dozen anthology and collection calls. Then The Oracle's Series came along and afterwards my Supernatural Consultant Series. With every new book, The Case of the Wandering Wolves was pushed further and further back on my to-do list until it was at the very bottom.
That was honestly okay with me. At the time, I had written about 8k words in Wandering Wolves and was stuck. I didn't know how I wanted the story to progress or where the twist was. The romance had fizzled out and the overall story needed some major rewrites. I was essentially looking at what I wanted to be a 25k story with only 10k worth of actual plot and about 5k that needed to be fixed. The story had turned into a dud, which I really felt was a shame. It was supposed to be the first book of an entire series, The Trickster's Eye Series, and I couldn't even get it past the first hurdle. LT3 sent out a Satisfaction Guaranteed anthology call about the same time I was thinking of scrapping Wandering Wolves entirely and forgetting it ever existed. I guess my brain was stuck on the ideas in Wandering Wolves because I started pulling characters and plots from that original book and putting them into a new story. Orion and Denton weren't originally supposed to be part of the Trickster's Eye universe, but Heartbeat fit so perfectly into the overall story line. Suddenly, the series was off the ground. LT3 accepted Heartbeat and it was published on September 24, 2014. Now I couldn't simply forget Wandering Wolves ever existed; I had a book in the series already in my readers' hands. Yet, Wandering Wolves was still stalled and broken. Nothing I did helped revive it, so I returned to my other projects. Then LT3 put out a new anthology call: Private Dicks, Packing Heat. I stayed away from it at first because I already had too much on my to-do list, but I did eventually read it. Light bulb! If I changed this bit around, shortened this, and reworked that, Wandering Wolves was back on track. The call was for a story between 10k-20k and it turned out that shortening the story to only topping out at 15k words was the answer. I didn't need a drawn out plot or extra twists. I could focus on one case and one romance and leave it simple and easy. I got the story written, sent it off to beta readers because it was still suffering a bit, got their edits fixed, and submitted it to LT3 last year. They accepted it! Of course, they asked if it was okay to publish Wandering Wolves on it's own instead of as part of the anthology. I said yes, because I had a bit of an epiphany that there was another story in the series to write. The Case of the Hopping Hare had hopped into my brain, so publishing Wandering Wolves as a stand-alone was perfect. It's so wonderful for me to see one of my oldest stories taking off. The Case of the Wandering Wolves will arrive in stores on January 11, 2017, just a few days away. It's available for pre-order right now, so you can get your copy today: https://lessthanthreepress.com/books...
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April 15, 2023 AuthorMell Eight is an author writing with NSP. For more information about Mell and her writing, please visit her website: http://melleightfiction. Tags
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