Dawn Metcalf's Blog, page 18
July 30, 2013
Happy Book Birthday, INDELIBLE!
IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! IT'S LIVE! IT'S REAL!
***HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY, INDELIBLE!!!***
*Happy Dance* *sparkles* *confetti* *collapses*
If you're in the area, I';d love to see you at one of the upcoming launch signing at The Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Massachusetts where we will offer up the brand new book, a little Q&A and some "burnt rose" chocolates on Thursday, August 1st at 7pm. (Click here for more information!)
Then there is the traditional celebratory eating of the ice cream at local favorite, Collins Creamery, the best-kept-secret dairy farm in Enfield, Connecticut. Once again, I'll be signing books and the folks at Collins will feature a sundae inspired by the book (I'm rooting for adding Twix(t) bars!) on Tuesday, August 13th at 7pm.
Another signing will be scheduled in the Boston area soon and more signings and events are scheduled throughout the month, check the website for details. And if you can't make any of these, order a copy from Harlequin, Amazon, Barnes & Noble or your favorite indie bookstore nearest you!
For now, I am going to sit back and enjoy a well-deserved rest.
...
Who am I kidding? What's next?!? Ah yes, SEQUEL EDITS! *begins typing furiously*
July 22, 2013
Happy Book Birthday IN AUSTRALIA!
INDELIBLE is my first book to have a foreign cover! I've always dreamed of having a book made for other countries and it's happened! No translation necessary as it's in my dream-vacation country of Australia...maybe the perfect excuse for a tour? Have you seen the Australian cover? It's so purple and ghostly! Check it out:
INDELIBLE is available there TODAY at Angus Robertson and wherever books are sold!
HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY!!!
And don't forget to check out Parajunkie, the latest stop on the Indelible Book Blog Tour for an interview with Joy and another chance to win the INDELIBLY YOURS Grand Prize Pack!
INDELIBLE is available there TODAY at Angus Robertson and wherever books are sold!
HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY!!!
And don't forget to check out Parajunkie, the latest stop on the Indelible Book Blog Tour for an interview with Joy and another chance to win the INDELIBLY YOURS Grand Prize Pack!
July 19, 2013
Monomyth ala Muppets
The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell's "Monomyth" Theory explained by puppets using Adam Sandler films (and other popular movies) as examples. If this doesn't help your writing, it will at least help you smile!
You're welcome.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
(video thanks to Lee Wind via Emma Dryden.)
You're welcome.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
(video thanks to Lee Wind via Emma Dryden.)
July 17, 2013
Glendale, North Carolina: A Deadly Destination
Many people ask about the Twixt, specifically: where is it? Of course, being anywhere that magic still exists in the world, this is sort of being asked "Where is the Internet?" But there *is* a place where magic concentrates, where the original Glen and one of the entrances to that which live "Under the Hill" reside, somewhere unexpected and completely (seemingly) ordinary: Glendale, North Carolina.
Dark Faery Tales is featuring Glendale's hottest indoor/outdoor club, the Carousel on the Green as today's Deadly Destination! Click it for your summer book escape, a book giveaway & get a sneak peek into the world of the Twixt!
Show Me Your Ink Contest Update
Remember the Show Me Your Ink Contest? Well, I've gotten a lot of questions about how to qualify and I didn't want anyone to miss the opportunity in these final fun weeks counting down to launch.
Did you get an INDELIBLE rose tattoo? If so, snap a picture and send it in to me at Dawn.Metcalf (at) gmail.com along with your email and you get the password for the exclusive, secret downloadable prize!
Do you want an INDELIBLE rose tattoo? Write the words "Ink Was Here" on your cheek, lips or (ideally) your ear with something that isn't permanent and snap a picture and send it along with your mailing address to Dawn.Metcalf (at) gmail.com and I'll send you a temporary tattoo so you can qualify for the above-mentioned prize.
Are you more a visual person? If so, it's très simple. Do this:
Send me the pic, and get this:
What? You think I was going to spill so easily? ;-)
Did you get an INDELIBLE rose tattoo? If so, snap a picture and send it in to me at Dawn.Metcalf (at) gmail.com along with your email and you get the password for the exclusive, secret downloadable prize!
Do you want an INDELIBLE rose tattoo? Write the words "Ink Was Here" on your cheek, lips or (ideally) your ear with something that isn't permanent and snap a picture and send it along with your mailing address to Dawn.Metcalf (at) gmail.com and I'll send you a temporary tattoo so you can qualify for the above-mentioned prize.
Are you more a visual person? If so, it's très simple. Do this:
Send me the pic, and get this:
What? You think I was going to spill so easily? ;-)
July 15, 2013
Letting Dreams Come True
I'm back from my pre-launch tour-slash-vacation celebrating the countdown to INDELIBLE hitting the shelves in the US and Canada, filled with laughter and memories and *WAY* too many pain au chocolats. But that's the present I got to have with my family: having the sort of celebration where dreams come true.
I confess I have BIG dreams about being a writer. I've had them ever since I was five and wondering what it would be like to see my book on the shelf of a library or bookstore. (Hint: It's awesome! ) And while I have some of those big dreams mean foreign sales and movie rights and awards from my peers as well as paying for my kids' college and taking my family and friends on an all-paid dream vacation, I also have smaller dreams that count just as much, marking my way along this publishing journey, celebrating milestones and proving just how far I've come. Last week, I got to have a dream come true.
Maybe some of you have followed along long enough to remember this particular dream: I'd been on a trip to Quebec and posted about the food and the architecture, the Cirque du Soleil show (Ovo) and the Bodies Revealed exhibit, but most important to me was that I'd found a couple of paintings that so astounded me, that I aspired to own one someday. [Click to reminisce with me.] The motion of trees and the colors of leaves, the swirl of branches as if we were laying on our backs and looking up at the world through a haze of forest into the bright light of the sky so touched my husband and I that we went back to look at them again and again. Unfortunately, they were WAY beyond what we could even consider purchasing, but it cost nothing to dream.
But I was living one of my lifelong dreams: writing professionally and my books were selling. I slowly began saving up and, since I'd taken the card of the artist and title of the paintings with me when I left Quebec, making note of the galleries where I'd seen them on display, I contacted the number when I was getting close to my goal...only to find that they'd both already sold.
I was crushed.
Still, I kept an eye on the artist, Pierre Marcoux, and followed where his work would be showing and every time I visited Quebec, I sought them out. Considering we've gone to Quebec every 2-3 years, this was a long process and I was never disappointed in the incredible work I saw but invariably, they would be sold before I got to see them in person. On my latest trip, I excitedly went back to the gallery that still featured Marcoux only to find that there were none there. I was shocked. In fact, I was shocked enough to do something completely and utterly ridiculous...
I emailed the artist.
I had emailed him before, once, when I first linked to his website to tell him how much I admired his work and while I never expected a reply, he graciously thanked me for my email and hoped that I'd enjoyed my trip to Quebec. I was touched and smiled and that was that. This time, it was different. This time, I said that I was a long-time admirer of his work but had not located his work while in Quebec and had he moved galleries? He replied that he had not been working due to health issues and that to please tell him next time I came out and maybe he could tell me more then. I wished him best wishes and good health and maybe for ordinary people, that would have been that...but it wasn't.
The next time we planned a trip to Quebec, I wrote to Pierre Marcoux in the hopes that he was feeling better, that he had returned to his art, and that I might get to see his paintings once again. He wrote back with an invitation extended to my entire family to come visit him and his wife at their home outside Quebec in order to visit his garden and studio.
Let me put this simply: I flipped out.
This...this was incredible. It was like being invited to Giverny by a modern-day Monet. I had to read it again to make sure it said what I thought it said. It was like getting my college acceptance or my book offer all over again. I squealed to my parents, who would be meeting us in Canada and had heard me babble about my love of Marcoux's work for years. We arranged a date to come out and it became the most anticipated part of my vacation. We planned the route and brought a gift and were welcomed to his home on a beautiful July afternoon with a kiss on both cheeks and a tour around the gardens.
Oh! The gardens! There were vegetable gardens and flower gardens and water gardens, bubbling fountains and streams, fish ponds and bridges, shady trees and exotic plants and an enormous 10-sided gazebo with hand-cut skylights that he had designed and built from scratch using no plans, but having it come together as he went, constructed over three years. (He even made a miniature one for a backyard bird feeder! Did I mention the bird feeders? Or the birds? Or the butterflies?) And if that wasn't astounding enough, he invited us into his home for drinks and his downstairs studio.
He showed us how he started, creating textures on a blank canvas, letting the motion inspire the painting, he showed us how and why he chose colors and use of light, using motion and emotion, inspired from nature peeking right outside his window. And then there were the paintings. So many beautiful paintings, each one impossibly more gorgeous and vivid than the next. He presented each one under his natural light array upon the easel, explaining where the inspiration for it came from, pointing out details and how the series or style evolved over his lifetime of painting since age 17. He'd been a biochemist, an art teacher, worked in a hospital and gallery co-ops, and all the while there had been his painting. I saw water pools and apple trees and spruce trees and sow, sunsets and the Northern Lights and flowers and leaves and tumbles of branches in every color under the sun. I couldn't stop smiling. My mother audibly gasped. And when he spoke, it was with grace and wisdom and a humble truth about art that I struggled to recite in my head, not to spoil the moment by writing everything he said down that instant and managed to save a few pearls because of how much they resonated in my artist heart. I treasured them even more than what he had shared with me thus far and this is some of what he said:
"Everything in nature is motion. If you drew every leaf on a tree, it wouldn't be a tree."
"All of my art is about motion and light. It is always at the heart of all of my work...The paintings are different, but that is always the same."
"I don't know where I begin, but I paint and I paint until I come to the end and then I think, 'It's done.'"
"The subject of the painting doesn't matter--what matters is the feeling you are left with after you're done looking at it."
I was touched, moved, inspired, awed. I didn't dare ask if any of these paintings were for his next gallery show (which would be happening next month) or if some were available for purchase. It was too personal. I was too nervous. So, naturally, my father asked instead. And Marcoux said that there was no obligation, but that these were available--they were all available--and I started to dream and, at last, let the dream become real.
So now I am the proud owner of Lumière de Septembre, one of my personal, precious dreams that I can look at every day and know that I made it happen. Like my books. My children. My life as I know it.
And now I'm home with the INDELIBLE blog tour still marching on it's way: today's stop features some character interviews at Refracted Light Reviews, full tour schedule here. Lastly, I'm happy to be able to make someone else's dream come true--the dream of winning a contest! (I know it's a little dream, but they all start somewhere!) So the winner of a signed, embossed, shiny first-batch, fresh-off-the-presses copy of INDELIBLE is:
*** amaterasureads ***
Congratulations!!!
Go dream. Dream big! Dream small! Dream of whatever motivates you to make good art. Because, at the end of the day, what we have in our hearts are our hopes, our memories, and our most heartfelt dreams.
I confess I have BIG dreams about being a writer. I've had them ever since I was five and wondering what it would be like to see my book on the shelf of a library or bookstore. (Hint: It's awesome! ) And while I have some of those big dreams mean foreign sales and movie rights and awards from my peers as well as paying for my kids' college and taking my family and friends on an all-paid dream vacation, I also have smaller dreams that count just as much, marking my way along this publishing journey, celebrating milestones and proving just how far I've come. Last week, I got to have a dream come true.
Maybe some of you have followed along long enough to remember this particular dream: I'd been on a trip to Quebec and posted about the food and the architecture, the Cirque du Soleil show (Ovo) and the Bodies Revealed exhibit, but most important to me was that I'd found a couple of paintings that so astounded me, that I aspired to own one someday. [Click to reminisce with me.] The motion of trees and the colors of leaves, the swirl of branches as if we were laying on our backs and looking up at the world through a haze of forest into the bright light of the sky so touched my husband and I that we went back to look at them again and again. Unfortunately, they were WAY beyond what we could even consider purchasing, but it cost nothing to dream.
But I was living one of my lifelong dreams: writing professionally and my books were selling. I slowly began saving up and, since I'd taken the card of the artist and title of the paintings with me when I left Quebec, making note of the galleries where I'd seen them on display, I contacted the number when I was getting close to my goal...only to find that they'd both already sold.
I was crushed.
Still, I kept an eye on the artist, Pierre Marcoux, and followed where his work would be showing and every time I visited Quebec, I sought them out. Considering we've gone to Quebec every 2-3 years, this was a long process and I was never disappointed in the incredible work I saw but invariably, they would be sold before I got to see them in person. On my latest trip, I excitedly went back to the gallery that still featured Marcoux only to find that there were none there. I was shocked. In fact, I was shocked enough to do something completely and utterly ridiculous...
I emailed the artist.
I had emailed him before, once, when I first linked to his website to tell him how much I admired his work and while I never expected a reply, he graciously thanked me for my email and hoped that I'd enjoyed my trip to Quebec. I was touched and smiled and that was that. This time, it was different. This time, I said that I was a long-time admirer of his work but had not located his work while in Quebec and had he moved galleries? He replied that he had not been working due to health issues and that to please tell him next time I came out and maybe he could tell me more then. I wished him best wishes and good health and maybe for ordinary people, that would have been that...but it wasn't.
The next time we planned a trip to Quebec, I wrote to Pierre Marcoux in the hopes that he was feeling better, that he had returned to his art, and that I might get to see his paintings once again. He wrote back with an invitation extended to my entire family to come visit him and his wife at their home outside Quebec in order to visit his garden and studio.
Let me put this simply: I flipped out.
This...this was incredible. It was like being invited to Giverny by a modern-day Monet. I had to read it again to make sure it said what I thought it said. It was like getting my college acceptance or my book offer all over again. I squealed to my parents, who would be meeting us in Canada and had heard me babble about my love of Marcoux's work for years. We arranged a date to come out and it became the most anticipated part of my vacation. We planned the route and brought a gift and were welcomed to his home on a beautiful July afternoon with a kiss on both cheeks and a tour around the gardens.
Oh! The gardens! There were vegetable gardens and flower gardens and water gardens, bubbling fountains and streams, fish ponds and bridges, shady trees and exotic plants and an enormous 10-sided gazebo with hand-cut skylights that he had designed and built from scratch using no plans, but having it come together as he went, constructed over three years. (He even made a miniature one for a backyard bird feeder! Did I mention the bird feeders? Or the birds? Or the butterflies?) And if that wasn't astounding enough, he invited us into his home for drinks and his downstairs studio.
He showed us how he started, creating textures on a blank canvas, letting the motion inspire the painting, he showed us how and why he chose colors and use of light, using motion and emotion, inspired from nature peeking right outside his window. And then there were the paintings. So many beautiful paintings, each one impossibly more gorgeous and vivid than the next. He presented each one under his natural light array upon the easel, explaining where the inspiration for it came from, pointing out details and how the series or style evolved over his lifetime of painting since age 17. He'd been a biochemist, an art teacher, worked in a hospital and gallery co-ops, and all the while there had been his painting. I saw water pools and apple trees and spruce trees and sow, sunsets and the Northern Lights and flowers and leaves and tumbles of branches in every color under the sun. I couldn't stop smiling. My mother audibly gasped. And when he spoke, it was with grace and wisdom and a humble truth about art that I struggled to recite in my head, not to spoil the moment by writing everything he said down that instant and managed to save a few pearls because of how much they resonated in my artist heart. I treasured them even more than what he had shared with me thus far and this is some of what he said:
"Everything in nature is motion. If you drew every leaf on a tree, it wouldn't be a tree."
"All of my art is about motion and light. It is always at the heart of all of my work...The paintings are different, but that is always the same."
"I don't know where I begin, but I paint and I paint until I come to the end and then I think, 'It's done.'"
"The subject of the painting doesn't matter--what matters is the feeling you are left with after you're done looking at it."
I was touched, moved, inspired, awed. I didn't dare ask if any of these paintings were for his next gallery show (which would be happening next month) or if some were available for purchase. It was too personal. I was too nervous. So, naturally, my father asked instead. And Marcoux said that there was no obligation, but that these were available--they were all available--and I started to dream and, at last, let the dream become real.
So now I am the proud owner of Lumière de Septembre, one of my personal, precious dreams that I can look at every day and know that I made it happen. Like my books. My children. My life as I know it.
And now I'm home with the INDELIBLE blog tour still marching on it's way: today's stop features some character interviews at Refracted Light Reviews, full tour schedule here. Lastly, I'm happy to be able to make someone else's dream come true--the dream of winning a contest! (I know it's a little dream, but they all start somewhere!) So the winner of a signed, embossed, shiny first-batch, fresh-off-the-presses copy of INDELIBLE is:
*** amaterasureads ***
Congratulations!!!
Go dream. Dream big! Dream small! Dream of whatever motivates you to make good art. Because, at the end of the day, what we have in our hearts are our hopes, our memories, and our most heartfelt dreams.
July 8, 2013
INDELIBLE Book Blog Tour
The countdown continues!
Only 3 more weeks until INDELIBLE hits the shelves and things are happening! Things that I have been waiting for, things I couldn't wait to share and things that are actually coming true day-by-day. And today is one of them! I'm thrilled to announce the schedule for the official book blog tour featuring guest posts, interviews and reviews featuring behind-the-scenes insider info, rambling thoughts and character shout-outs happening exclusively at these blog stops right up until launch & today's kick-off event is at Harlequin's Paranormal Romance Blog where I got to interview my editor, Natashya Wilson! Click here to join the tour (and enter the giveaway)!
Tour Schedule:
Monday, July 8th: Harlequin Paranormal Romance blog
Tuesday, July 11th: Reading Teen
Wednesday, July 10th: Coffee Books and Me
Friday, July 12th: Fiktshun
Monday, July 15th: Refracted Lights Reviews
Wednesday, July 17th: Two Chicks on Books
Friday, July 19th: Good Choice Reading
Monday, July 22th: Parajunkee
Wednesday, July 24th: Chapter by Chapter
Friday, July 26th: Rainy Day Ramblings
The tour concludes with a chance to win an INDELIBLY YOURS Grand Prize Package:
Includes: a copper rose, elegant feather quill pen and ink well, and violet & burgundy "indelible" inks.
Join the tour! Win prizes! Learn things I'll probably deny later in life! And if you haven't already gotten your orders in, Indelible is available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble & your favorite independent bookstore!
Only 3 more weeks until INDELIBLE hits the shelves and things are happening! Things that I have been waiting for, things I couldn't wait to share and things that are actually coming true day-by-day. And today is one of them! I'm thrilled to announce the schedule for the official book blog tour featuring guest posts, interviews and reviews featuring behind-the-scenes insider info, rambling thoughts and character shout-outs happening exclusively at these blog stops right up until launch & today's kick-off event is at Harlequin's Paranormal Romance Blog where I got to interview my editor, Natashya Wilson! Click here to join the tour (and enter the giveaway)!
Tour Schedule:
Monday, July 8th: Harlequin Paranormal Romance blog
Tuesday, July 11th: Reading Teen
Wednesday, July 10th: Coffee Books and Me
Friday, July 12th: Fiktshun
Monday, July 15th: Refracted Lights Reviews
Wednesday, July 17th: Two Chicks on Books
Friday, July 19th: Good Choice Reading
Monday, July 22th: Parajunkee
Wednesday, July 24th: Chapter by Chapter
Friday, July 26th: Rainy Day Ramblings
The tour concludes with a chance to win an INDELIBLY YOURS Grand Prize Package:
Includes: a copper rose, elegant feather quill pen and ink well, and violet & burgundy "indelible" inks.
Join the tour! Win prizes! Learn things I'll probably deny later in life! And if you haven't already gotten your orders in, Indelible is available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble & your favorite independent bookstore!
July 5, 2013
Inspired by du spectacle Cirque
Yesterday I saw the latest Cirque du Soleil show in the Les Chemins Invisibles series, Le Hangar des Oubliés. Now I have historical fiction a la steampunk industrialization acrobatic decoupage running through my head and I thought I should share:
[image error]
Now I want to put something inspired by this in my latest manuscript. Hmm...
[image error]
Now I want to put something inspired by this in my latest manuscript. Hmm...
July 3, 2013
3 Things
3 Things to Know Before You Read INDELIBLE:
1) This is not your mama’s fairy tale. It exists somewhere between Once Upon a Time and Grimm in the dangerous space between my ears.
2) Most of the characters and their backstories are based on real myths and legends from around the world including Greece, Ireland, Europe, Israel and the Amazonian basin. I believe the best fantasy has at least a toehold in reality.
3) Okay, it's true: I’m a little strange. I prefer to think of it as “unique.”
3 Things to Know While You Read INDELIBLE:
1) No, I am not into homicidal maniacs, despite my record thus far. The idea that people with the Sight would get their eyes plucked out is taken directly from old fairy lore. Blame them.
2) Kurt’s name was originally “Beck” but between writing and publication, the name appeared in an amazing hit trilogy so I changed it. (Besides, I liked the word play on “curt.”)
3) Aside from the main character and her family, nearly every other character in the book is a Person of Color--something I didn’t realize until someone asked me about this 2 months ago. Go fig.
3 Things to Know After You Read INDELIBLE:
1) Graus Claude is one of my favorite characters who was based on a very old RPG character from the 1990s (although the original, Amalthea Salvaducci, was female). Fun fact!
2) The story about the Big Wheel stunt? ...Yeah, that was me.
3) The sequel to INDELIBLE is due out April, 2014 and follows the further adventures of Joy, Ink, Graus Claude, Inq and the Cabana Boys as Joy struggles to find her feet in both worlds with some unexpected (and unintended) consequences!
* * * * *
The Twixt is a strange, dark and beautiful place filled with strange, dark and beautiful people. Take heed, grab hold & dive on in. I can't wait to share this with you!!
1) This is not your mama’s fairy tale. It exists somewhere between Once Upon a Time and Grimm in the dangerous space between my ears.
2) Most of the characters and their backstories are based on real myths and legends from around the world including Greece, Ireland, Europe, Israel and the Amazonian basin. I believe the best fantasy has at least a toehold in reality.
3) Okay, it's true: I’m a little strange. I prefer to think of it as “unique.”
3 Things to Know While You Read INDELIBLE:
1) No, I am not into homicidal maniacs, despite my record thus far. The idea that people with the Sight would get their eyes plucked out is taken directly from old fairy lore. Blame them.
2) Kurt’s name was originally “Beck” but between writing and publication, the name appeared in an amazing hit trilogy so I changed it. (Besides, I liked the word play on “curt.”)
3) Aside from the main character and her family, nearly every other character in the book is a Person of Color--something I didn’t realize until someone asked me about this 2 months ago. Go fig.
3 Things to Know After You Read INDELIBLE:
1) Graus Claude is one of my favorite characters who was based on a very old RPG character from the 1990s (although the original, Amalthea Salvaducci, was female). Fun fact!
2) The story about the Big Wheel stunt? ...Yeah, that was me.
3) The sequel to INDELIBLE is due out April, 2014 and follows the further adventures of Joy, Ink, Graus Claude, Inq and the Cabana Boys as Joy struggles to find her feet in both worlds with some unexpected (and unintended) consequences!
* * * * *
The Twixt is a strange, dark and beautiful place filled with strange, dark and beautiful people. Take heed, grab hold & dive on in. I can't wait to share this with you!!
July 1, 2013
It's July! INDELIBLE'S Launch Month!
It’s July! July? Seriously? That means 30 DAYS UNTIL INDELIBLE IS LAUNCHED!
Let me sit with that a minute.
…
Okay! Minute’s over! WOOO HOOO! Let the countdown begin!
To celebrate, I’m thrilled to announce the winner of the Indelible Book Trailer Giveaway contest who will be receiving a one-of-a-kind annotated, illustrated painstakingly-scribbled-on copy of Indelible. And the winner is:
***KikiD******
Congratulations! Please ping me at Dawn (dot) Metcalf (at) gmail with your mailing address to claim your prize.
Are you excited? I’m excited!!!
And now we return you to your regularly-scheduled summer fun.
Let me sit with that a minute.
…
Okay! Minute’s over! WOOO HOOO! Let the countdown begin!
To celebrate, I’m thrilled to announce the winner of the Indelible Book Trailer Giveaway contest who will be receiving a one-of-a-kind annotated, illustrated painstakingly-scribbled-on copy of Indelible. And the winner is:
***KikiD******
Congratulations! Please ping me at Dawn (dot) Metcalf (at) gmail with your mailing address to claim your prize.
Are you excited? I’m excited!!!
And now we return you to your regularly-scheduled summer fun.
![[image error]](http://www.bonjourquebec.com/fr/images/fete-festival-evenement-les-chemins-invisibles-du-cirque-du-soleil-344551724.png){kind=link}