Dawn Metcalf's Blog, page 20

"Show Me Your Ink" Swag Contest & Prequalifiers!

INDELIBLE arcs are coming to BEA! To celebrate, the Harlequin Dream Team and I wanted everyone to feel like they were part of this amazing event at the Javitz Center in New York by giving you a little taste of the pre-launch party fun! (We didn't want anyone to feel left out, so...)

INDELIBLE is about a girl, Joy Malone, and how she gets entangled with members of the Twixt, the last vestiges of magic that exist in our world. Her introduction comes in the form of two Goth-looking twins, Indelible Ink and Invisible Inq, whose jobs are to mark humans that are claimed by the Twixt. Ink's marks are meant to be seen while Inq's marks are invisible. To qualify for this latest giveaway, *YOU* get to marked by one of the Twixt!

*** Show Me Your Ink!!! ***



Send me a photo of yourself or your favorite unsuspecting sleeping person with the words "Ink Was Here" written anywhere on the face/lips/cheek/ear. (Please use eye pencil or face paint or something other than magic marker so your parents or S.O.s don't yell at me.) Purists might want to know that my preference is the ear for reasons that will become obvious once you read the book! Email the photo along with your mailing address to me at Dawn.Metcalf on gmail for a gorgeous INDELIBLE temporary tattoo!



Oooo! Ahhhh! WANT!

Keep that camera handy, ladies & gentlemen--there's more...

This tattoo by Mario S. Nevado is not only pretty and pretty darn cool, but it qualifies you for an exclusive content contest. To enter, apply this tattoo to your shoulder/arm/wrist/hand and take a photo. (Purists may also want to note the left shoulder is the one mentioned in the book!) Email that pic with "Show My Ink!" in the Subject line and you can win an exclusive prize only available to those who participate! Details will be emailed directly to you.



This contest is open to US residents and runs from now through June 1st. Tattoos will be available at BEA and also through this (and other) contests! Get writing, get snapping & SHOW ME YOUR INK!

Recap Deets on How To Enter & Win Swag:

PART I:
1. Draw "Ink Was Here" somewhere on your face with something that won't get me in trouble
2. Email it & your mailing address to me at Dawn.Metcalf (at) gmail.com
3. Get your beautiful INDELIBLE temporary tattoo!
PART II:
1. Take a picture of your tattoo somewhere on your arm that won't get me in trouble
2. Email it to me at Dawn.Metcalf (at) gmail.com
3. Get your exclusive, participant-only prize via email!

But wait! There's still more going on...

- Did you enter the Goodreads Giveaway going on right now? ARCs available directly from Harlequin TEEN!
- And, bloggers, it may be late May but I Still ♥ Book Bloggers! and you can get arcs & swag by clicking on the link!
- INDELIBLE's pre-order contest is ongoing through launch date, July 30th--send proof of purchase to my email and get a super-secret Thank You prize from me!

Flawed & Fabulous

Besides the fact that this is evidence that I've eaten a Dove chocolate caramel, what non-addicts might not realize is that there are little fortune-cookie-style messages hidden on the inside of every foil wrapper. Why we need these little bursts of positive self-esteem when we are obviously about to consume a ton of empty calories is the sort of mind-bendy marketing ploy that I can't quite wrap my head around, but that's why I'm in fiction writing and eating gobs of chocolate in the first place. That said, this particular one caught my eye and got the little hamster wheels turning in my brain, because it captured one of the things I think make the best writing: it's the flaws that make a character interesting.

You ever meet one of those people who seem to be the best at everything? She looks fabulous, dresses at the height of fashion, has tons of friends and a loyal, handsome boyfriend, she gets great grades, does a socially-acceptable sport or has great team spirit, shows ambition and empathy in equal amounts, is talented and family-oriented and dedicates her free time to her religious association of choice and is appropriately socially active. She's Miss Perfect! But here's the hitch: nobody really likes Miss Perfect. (Or at least likes to read about Miss Perfect...with some exception.) In fact, being perfect becomes the flaw on which everyone else can hang their hat as the reason not to like her. Call it human nature or chalk it up to the green-eyed monster, but people like to see how far the mighty will fall.

Of course, we also like to see the underdog succeed.*



In order for readers to root for your character, we have to see the flaws that are inherent in her/him, the ones that get in the way of success and clean communication, the ones that s/he will have to fight in order to overcome and make their way to happiness. These are everything from the "nerds" to the noble tragic heroes, the stereotypical "dumb blondes" to Edward Gorey-esque orphan castaways, we feel for the person who struggles and wince when s/he falls prey to their own shortcomings. But we need there to be shortcomings to make characters seem more human, more sympathetic, more likable, more engaging, and more real. Be sure to counterbalance all the good in your MC with equal doses of not-so-good, some of which may be solved and overcome and some of which may be as constant as Harry's "bit of a saving people thing." Some parts of us are here to stay and will drag us into the mire time and time again.

And we're eager to watch.

Keep this in mind the next time you're reading or writing or enjoying a piece of heavenly chocolate: the truth is, everyone worth knowing is both flawed AND fabulous!


* With the exception of Ferris Bueller. But, then again, the whole point is that he's the exception to the rules!

Upcoming, Ongoing & Amusing Newest News

Taking a quick break-within-a-break to share the breaking news as it, uh, breaks. (Clearly, it's obvious why I need some quiet time in the writing cave. Carry on.)

Upcoming:

There will be a contest announced next week involving this:



Curious? Intrigued? Can't wait? Stay tuned!

Ongoing:

Last chance to sign up to be a part of the arc tour hosted by Wastepaper Prose and PageTurners! Sign ups close at the end of the week (tomorrow) so clicken to join the parade!

If you miss that opportunity, know that my I ♥ Book Bloggers Giveaway is still going on, should you want a chance to get a signed arc, 10 bookmarks and a bit of secret swag. There are arcs waiting to find good homes. While others will be at BEA and GoodReads and Netgalley soon, here's your chance to get Book One of the Twixt first.

Aaaand amusing:

I got the following tweet yesterday:

@dawnmetcalf I wondered if there was an excerpt of Indelible yet available. The narration, is it in the first person singular?

So I thought I'd answer here:

Alas, unlike every other YA author on the planet, I tend not to write in 1st person POV, but in 3rd. Indelible is not in 3rd person omniscient as I did with Luminous, but 3rd person focused, specifically on the main character, Joy Malone. I have stories which I've written in 1st person, but I was more comfortable with this one being in 3rd. I never thought this was unusual until I started writing specifically for a YA/MG market (something that sprang up over the course of my being a YA to a NA to a whatever-I-am-now [My brain rebels at calling myself an "adult" despite the fact that I have a house, a job, a spouse and two small people who look vaguely like my husband and call me "Mom."]) and people started to remark on it. I guess this makes me stand out in the crowd? Trust me, if you ever met me in person, I tend to stand out anyway.

As far as the excerpt, I'm happy to oblige with this exclusive clip from INDELIBLE:

JOY MARCHED QUICKLY down the hall, leading Inq away from the lunchroom and other people.
    “What are you doing here?” Joy asked under her breath. Salted soy butter stuck in her throat.
    “Just visiting,” Inq said. “I thought I’d bring you this.” She held up the laminated thumbs-up sign, its key chain dangling off her palm: Mr. Soares’s missing hall pass. Joy snatched it back. Inq grinned. “You’re welcome.”
    “Thank you,” she said. Checking the halls and the doors and the wall-mounted cameras, Joy retreated from the more congested parts of the school.
    “Isn’t there somewhere you need to be?” Joy whispered.
    “Need is such a human word.” Inq pouted. “Want and need are so subjective. I don’t find them very useful.” Joy turned a corner. Inq followed. “Where are you going?”
    “My locker,” Joy improvised, hoping that no one could see her talking to herself.
    “Well, that does sound important.” Joy bit back her retort. Inq sounded bored, and she was in no mood for bored Inq, which promised to be both dangerous and highly annoying. Inq hadn’t been too happy when they’d last been at Graus Claude’s, and Joy was still feeling emotional after her conversation with Stef. Prolonged exposure did not bode well.     Joy picked up the pace, skidding to a halt in front of her locker.
    “What do you want?” she whispered over her shoulder.
    Inq tipped her pixie face to the side as Joy dialed her combination. “Well, I just thought....”
    Joy pushed up the handle and darkness slammed down.
    Stunned, Joy glanced around in the heartbeat that followed, the flash in her eye a weak firefly in
sudden shadow. She squeezed the locker handle. It was solid and, presumably, real. She was in her school hallway, instantly transported into night. The world was coated in a thick film of heavy, brooding gray, but it wasn’t nighttime. The few people between classes were stuck where they stood. A dropped pen hung in midair. The hall clock hands frozen at 11:47.
    A thick, curving line held a concentrated darkness, as if a circle had been burned with gasoline on the floor. Joy was trapped inside a bubble—everything beyond it as still as a held breath.
    Except Inq.
    Inq struggled to her feet. She looked almost as shocked as Joy felt. Her dark, colorless eyes blinked rapidly as she frowned.
    “Joy?” Inq called, her voice warped as if underwater, echoing weirdly although she was barely six inches away. “Are you okay?”
    Joy waited for the sound of her words to fade before answering.
    “Yes,” she said. Her voice sounded normal to her. “I think so.” She let go of the locker door, but nothing changed. The weight of the gray silence was like a deepwater dive. “What happened?”
    “I don’t know,” Inq confessed. The sound seemed mismatched, penetrating the bubble a long second after her mouth moved. “It’s a trap.”
    “A trap?” Joy stretched out to grab Inq through the veil, but hit something not quite solid that sparked. Joy hissed, clenching the feeling of electric ant bites from her fingers. Pain lit the fear inside her. She stared at Inq. “Get me out.”
    “I don’t know...” Inq sounded upset, worried, for the first time Joy had known her. And now was a bad time to start. “I don’t think I can.”
    “Yes, you can!” Joy said. “Get me out! Try!” She held out her hand as if Inq might dare to take it, but the Goth girl shook her head and splayed her fingers as if she were waving goodbye. Joy’s heart thudded wildly. “Ink...”
    “Don’t call him,” Inq warned. “He’d appear inside with you, and we need to be sure we can get you both out first.” She glanced over the fiery line, her mouth tight and grim. “Hang on.”

;-)

And, lastly, I leave you with this smile for the rest of the day. It never fails to crack me up!



*pulls blankets over head*
*pretends to be a turtle-turtle*
*resumes typing*

The Tao of Pooh

*peeks out from the revision cave*
*hangs a sign*
*pulls blankets over head*
*closes door*
*resumes typing*



In the meanwhile, read about what others said about what went down at NESCBWI 2013 (for fun recaps, click the links!) or join the INDELIBLE Arc tour by Page Turners & Wastepaper Prose. We'll be here with more news coming soon. Just as soon as I finish this draft and deal with the rumblies in my tummy.

P.S. If you don't understand the Subject line, click this.

Prepping for Fun!

I'm getting ready for the New England Society for Children's Book Writer's and Illustrator's Regional Conference taking place this weekend in Springfield, MA. I'm leading a writing workshop on Friday titled "Smells Like Teen Spirit!" that focuses on guided sensory writing using prompts and activities and a 2-hour Saturday workshop called "Save My Cat!" based off the screenwriting guide by Blake Snyder about how to pace storytelling for movies, which I find is also very useful when plotting out books. We have a packed house so I'm coming armed with capes, books, craziness and plenty of chocolate! Ought to be fun!


Be sure to pack the essentials!

So this involves a lot of packing, checking and rechecking lists, doing tech checks (which I have managed to fail and therefore am hopeful that the adapter cable I ordered comes in today so I can do a dry run off a projector...darn Mac bias!) and buying a lot of random things that make the cashiers think I must be creating a float for a parade somewhere that they've never heard of. Essentially, I'm getting ready to have some SERIOUS play time! Every time I've gone to a SCBWI function or event, I come back more energized, fulfilled, excited after having met new cool people, making new friends, been inspired by literary heroes, or making plans to meet people who I have only talked to online so: I'm happy! This is basically what an extrovert writer *dreams* of! I only wish I got to do this more often & still have dreams of attending SCBWI-LA which is supposed to be a sweet party!

I still remember being at my first big SCBWI conference and listening to the incredible Lin Oliver say to us sitting wide-eyed in our seats, "The goal is for you to be up here." I turned to the person next to me and said, "That's going to be me." It was one of my secret writerly goals of success to someday be on staff at SCBWI and here I am doing so for the second year and I couldn't be more honored and thrilled to be sharing the company of some of the greatest people in children's literature. Believe me: there's no one kinder, more generous, more helpful and genuinely welcoming than folks in kid's lit. If you haven't been to one of their events, earmark it as a goal for yourself--you'll be glad that you did!

Meanwhile, I'll be gabbing tonight at Thomaston Library about dark YA lit while eating dark chocolate. Life doesn't get much better than this!

A Walk in the Woods

See this? This was a dead tree I saw walking in the woods today. I had to stop and take a picture, breaking myself out of my normal routine of walking and talking and listening and thinking because I wanted to capture the look of this because it hit me as meaningful to where I am right now.

INDELIBLE is coming. It is my second "first book" (first in a new series, a new publisher, a new editor, a new niche of the market) and is very much what feels like a second chance. Some people know me by my debut book and many don't know me at all. This is my chance to show that I can tell stories, different stories with different characters and creatures and challenges and strange, new worlds but still maintain my "voice"--that elusive quality that defines us as writers and see what the wide world thinks about that. It is pushing through the old to create something new.

When I first thought that this reflected something about my publishing journey, I thought about sloughing off the old and forcing my way up into the light again after being so long in the dark. But that's not true. Like these beautiful little green tendrils that are clinging to the side of the dessicated bark and pushing out tiny newly-spring leaves, I am feeding off what I learned the first time out, using what I know and who I met to anchor and support me as I push forward, creating something tremulous and richer and altogether different, but having been sheltered by the first time, I now can be stronger, more flexible, more resilient and daring--I *had* to have this foundation in order to grow. And this time it's different. It is in many ways, this story is deeper and truer, helped by friends who support it and me, and having new eyes shining down upon it with light and tears and good hopes as it's ready to bloom. (Note the cover art!) Really, that's more what this is like: a moment of two steps on the journey into the sun.

"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among stars!" – Les Brown

...or, you never know, you might even grow a tree!

I ♥ Book Bloggers Giveaway!

INDELIBLE is out in the world! Hooray!

And to celebrate, I wanted to make *sure* I did one thing for my big Harlequin TEEN debut: I have a number of copies reserved for my exclusive, first-ever, thank-you-so-much...

*** I ♥ Book Bloggers Giveaway!!! ***

Click here to enter!

This is a giveaway just for the blogging community! A library of book bloggers* will have a chance to get their hands on an arc of Indelible: Book One of the Twixt as well as a few extra prizes for themselves and their followers. Indelible will soon be available on NetGalley as well as LibraryThing and a giveaway on GoodReads, but this is my way to say a huge "THANK YOU!" in advance to all the book bloggers who take the time to read and share their passion about books, reading, readerships and fandom. As an author, I can't express what you do for the writing and reading community so this is a little token to be sure YOU know that you are appreciated! Details below:



The I ♥ Book Bloggers Giveaway includes:

- a signed arc of INDELIBLE,
- signed bookmarks for you & for 10 of your followers, and
- a super-secret prize good for the next promotional giveaway! (Stay tuned for details!)

This giveaway is open to ALL YA FANTASY BOOK BLOGGERS so tell your friends & spread the news! Be sure to include all the relevant information for contacting you and whether you're following the latest news about myself and Indelible in any of the many formats that we inhabit online. Know that you, as a reader and reviewer, are a *huge* contribution to the continued life of good books and I, for one, can't thank you enough. Good luck, click here to enter & thank you from the bottom of my chocolate-filled heart!

:-)

* I've decided that a group of book bloggers should be called a "library" of bloggers. I welcome other fun suggestions!

For Boston & The World

As posted by Sandra Boynton:



Be good to one another.

Stay Tuned for Happiness

Timing when to share good news amidst tragedy is sort of like waiting to leap into a game of double-dutch using barbed wire.

It's been hard to write in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing. I'm fine. My family is fine. My friends are all fine and accounted for. But still...there's a lot of people who cannot say the same. It's hard to get back into the groove so shortly after the Newtown tragedy in CT and now this in MA. Real life seems very close and very urgent and demanding attention and it's worse than Mommy guilt to close my ears and shut it off, so I'm not. Right now I'm riding the waves and feeling the feels and promise to be back with good news starting next week.

I really do want to share my upcoming happiness with you, but not just yet. Soon, baby. Soon.

Be good to each other and know that there is far more good in the world than evil. (Thanks to folks like Carrie Jones for posting her thoughts and reminding us of that!)

Steampunk Toonage

T.G.I.F! We made it to the weekend which is hinting at becoming Spring sometime soon (if you don't live in the Midwest), and to celebrate, I thought I'd serve up something fresh 'n' steamy to brighten up your Friday: steampunk cartoons! Of course, there are cartoon classics like Howl's Moving Castle, Atlantis: The Lost Empire or Treasure Planet, and you can wander for hours through galleries of artistic machinations on DeviantArt, but I thought I'd share a few flashbacks as well as future surprises. Perhaps you'll even recognize some of them?



G.I.Z.M.O. Duck by Timone [via Steampunk Workshop] is the sort of flashback that makes me smile. Of course, it's likely that you have *NO* idea what I'm talking about but just seeing this modded figurine made the Darkwing Duck theme song appear in my head. now I have an earworm for the day. Anyway, trust me: this is classic!



For Disneyphiles who yearn for steampunk beyond the original Steamboat Willie, Disney artist Mike Sullivan created a Vinylmation Steampunk pocket watch & clockworked Micky Mouse. Mike Sullivan is behind the brainchild of Disney Parks' newest theme, The Mechanical Kingdom due out sometime this year! Check out these hat ornaments! [via Dieselpunks.org]





And for a little multimedia, here's a pilot for a possible web series for kids called "Steampuff" (which sounded like Powerpuff Girls ala Steampunk but *SO* isn't)! Check this out from SteeleHouse Productions [via Cartoonbrew.com]:



And, lastly, this *fabulous* animated short called "A Gentleman's Duel" by Blur Studio, which is possibly my all-time-favorite (if we don't count absolutely everything by Shaun Tan). Enjoy!



Have a fun & fabulous weekend! Start it off with a smile!