A long and winding road…
I began work on what would become Timberwolves back in the Fall of 2001 while I was in college. Yes, that’s nearly 20 years ago. In it’s earliest forms, the story began as a film script. I had a series of images in my head—a boy jumping over a corn field being machine gunned, a gruesome murder at a party, a football player obliterating an opponent, separating him from his helmet—but not much else.
I soon figured out that I didn’t know much about writing scripts (all that formatting and specialized verbiage), but I had read hundreds of books, so I figured I could write that. Plus, I didn’t have any Hollywood connections. How would I even get this made into something that just didn’t exist in my head? Thus the story of Dominic Shaw began to take shape (although at that time, his name was the much more mundane James Willis). In the first draft, Willis was an experienced FBI agent, an expert at dealing with the supernatural—a far cry from the unemployed, down-on-his-luck oil hand he became in the later drafts. I wrote about 4 full scenes, and bits and scraps of dialogue that seemed to stick in my brain. Of those, a couple remain.
Life happened. I graduated college. The real world swallowed a lot of my free time, so this story faded into the corners of my mind, and I’d work on it sparingly during the next decade. I was happy becoming a teacher—a noble profession. I figured my dreams of being an author were just that—dreams. Then, in about 2012, I started getting that creative itch again. This story was fighting its way out of me. It wanted to be told.
“Damn Coyotes,” which is now chapter 15 of the book, used to be the prologue. That chapter was the first full scene I wrote way back in 2001, and it remains mostly unchanged today. However, nearly everything else changed so much that I hardly remember all those early drafts—and man, there were a lot of them. I think I wrote about 17 drafts of this book, and many of those rewrites included writing a completely new 1st or 3rd act, not just some topical changes.
The 4th draft was the first change that really broke the foundations of the book and forced me to rebuild things. This is largely thanks to author Micah Dean Hicks (if you haven’t read his books Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones or Electricity & Other Dreams, you should get on that immediately—they’re amazing). Anyway, Micah read my current draft, because I thought at the time I was ready for publication and he was one of the only folks I knew who was a published author. He graciously agreed, and gave me invaluable notes on a macro level. I put the character of Dominic Shaw (who was no longer James Willis) through the ringer and made him a much more sympathetic character. He wasn’t the stud FBI agent who could do no wrong. He had flaws and weaknesses and we didn’t like everything about him. Micah also noticed that my story could go two directions—it can basically become Attack the Block or ‘Salem’s Lot. I nodded my head and agreed, pretending I knew all about both of those—I didn’t.
I proceeded to read ‘Salem’s Lot, followed by many other Stephen King books. I became quite a fan, but more importantly, I now understood what Micah was telling me (for those interested, I veered away from the ‘Salem’s Lot angle—that story had been done perfectly, so what was I going to add to it?). But I kept drafting and drafting.
I decided to keep my focus on Dominic and his tale of redemption. His personal struggles were the heart of the story. When another draft was complete, I started sharing it with readers, none more vital to its completion than my friend, Shannin, a college English professor and writer in her own right. She helped me with some wonky sentences, and reading it after following most of her suggestions felt like looking at a familiar room that had been given a fresh coat of paint.
When I felt like I was getting close again, I started dabbling in art to figure out what I wanted as a cover. I asked my brother to join me in this adventure (he has a great eye for such things, and is a competent artist himself). We started throwing ideas at each other. He painted these eyes, and for a long time, that was the only visual related to the book.
I kept writing, and a couple of subplots grew naturally where there were none before. My brother and I started spit-balling other ideas for a cover. My original sketch was very rough—pen on college-ruled lined notebook paper. I think that original has been lost to time, but here’s a rough mock-up from my brother based on my sketch—closer to the final cover, but still not quite there.
An early mock-up of the Timberwolves cover.
The idea of the tag-line was still taking shape.
It was close, but it wasn’t quite right. Eventually, we arrived at the image below, using the full moon as the O in Timberwolves.
I queried with several agents, but I never found the right one. I contacted several publishing houses, but without much luck. I had a few requests for additional chapters and one for a full manuscript, but I never found one that loved it as much as I do. So, in the height of the Corona quarantine, I decided to return to it and give it one more polish. I made the decision to build this website and self-publish. I hope you all appreciate the journey to bring Dominic Shaw and company into your lives, and I hope you enjoy spending time in the world I created.
