What am I doing? Answers on a postcard...

Day three of the rest of my life and I've started back on THE DARK GODDESS, the follow up book to THE DEVIL'S KISS.
It's great being free of the editing and back into raw first draft stuff where frankly, you don't worry about anything except intense CONFLICT.
However, it did bring me to review 'what's it all about?"
TDG has werewolves aplenty, its a supernatural thiller after all, but so what? What do werewolves MEAN?
Of the top of my head we've got change, hidden nature, cannibalism, lunacy, freedom and wildness.
My most immediate image is a beast, silohuetted against a full moon, just howling. Howling for the fury of it, howling for the LOVE of just being able to make that sound. Freedom to just BE. The joy of existing purely for the moment. That's the freedom the BEAST has. it's not governed by consequence. Isn't that exciting? Dangerous too, but that just adds to it. BEING WILD.
(This coming from a 40 yo man with mortgage, kids and a pot belly).
Change, that's a good one too. How often are we trapped in ourselves, in our expectations of how we should be, and how others perceive us? A werewolf literally TEARS itself free of its human self, ripping itself out, to reveal its true (?) nature. Are we, deep down, just beasts? That's what a werewolf asks of us. Run naked in the forests, howl at the beautiful moon...but be willing to pay the price. Hunt, feast in blood, feast in terror. The glimmer in your eyes are reflections of the fear you bring with you.
There's a little town in Romania, Brasov (I think, it was a long time ago) and it's in the Carpathians. DEEP DEEP Dracula country. It's got a black wooden church in the town square and during the day, is very chocolate box pretty.
But as night fell, thick mist descended down from the black peaks on either side, the streets were UTTERLY empty, the windows all shuttered and SILENT. No radios, no tvs blaring out, no cars rumbling in the background.
Then I heard a wolf howl. The sound echoed back and forth between the mountains, you had no idea where it was coming from. Part of me wonders, given the time, it wasn't really like that, but that's my memory. And I remember, whether it happened like that or not, of being very afraid. We've dwelt too long away from the camp fire in our safe houses and trashed nature to be able to order takeaway pizzas. But the wolf is out there, and he has a lean and hungry look.