Dawn Metcalf's Blog, page 34

Another Reason Why I Love Saundra Mitchell

OMG ZOMBABY!!!

*nom nom nom*

That is all.

#creepycake

First Annual Creepy Cake N Bake Starts MONDAY!

Sometime last year, I noticed that big-time author Stacey Jay had blogged about making gingerbread men or some cookie people but they had broken and decided to save the day by making them *zombie* cookies, complete with horrified facial expressions. This was clearly my kind of crazy. With that in mind, we began plotting for this, our very first annual Creepy Cake N Bake-a-Thon and have somehow convinced other like-minded bakers to join in the gruesome hilarity.

But what does it meeeeeeaaaaaannnnnn?

Throughout the month of October, sixteen authors will offer up sixteen creepy dessert creations on their blogs and inviting YOU to comment on which you think should win the Bake-a-Thon. Two disturbing hand made trophies (for the 1st and 2nd place author winners) will be awarded by our special Celebrity Judge, Adam Rex, author of such deliciously creepy creations such as FAT VAMPIRE and FRANKENSTEIN TAKES THE CAKE. (And as Stacey is wont to point out: who else is better qualified than a man who writes about monsters stealing pastry?)

And that's not all! Two less-disturbing prizes will be awarded to those who comment! Vote for your favorite entry by commenting below. You can comment on EVERY Cake N Bake post, one entry per post, for a chance to win a $20 gift certificate from The Book Depository or an official Creepy Cake N Bake doll! (Please include your email in your comment in order to be entered to win.)

Where do you comment for your chance to win? Here's a list of our Creepy Cake N Bakers:

Mon Oct. 3 - Saundra Mitchell
Wed Oct 5 - Stacey Jay
Friday Oct 7 - Erin Dionne
Saturday Oct 8 - Sydney Salter
Mon Oct 10 - Brenna Yovanoff
Wed Oct 12 - Tara Hudson
Friday Oct 14 - Karen Healey
Saturday Oct 15 - Robin Bridges
Mon Oct 17 - Michelle Zink
Wed Oct 19 - Julia Karr
Friday Oct 21 - Victoria Schwab
Saturday Oct 22 - C.Lee McKenzie
Sunday Oct 23 - E. Kristin Anderson
Mon Oct 24 - Natalie Zaman
Wed Oct 26 - Stephanie Burgis
Friday Oct 28 - Dawn Metcalf
Monday, Oct 31 - PRIZES AWARDED!

Follow along on Twitter at #creepycake and stay tuned for the fun, freaks & frosting!

Preheat your ovens, people--let's see what you've got cooking!

Erev Rosh Hashanah

Shanah Tova!

Happy New Year to those who celebrate!
And for those who don't, pick a bunch of gorgeous ripe apples and enjoy!
(If you'd like a little solidarity, try a slice dipped in honey!)


Thanks to seriouseats.com for the scrumptious pic!

This marks the beginning of another sweet new year: family, friends, travel, games, parties, new books, milestone celebrations, interesting costumes, funny anecdotes, more surprising wisdom from the mouths of babes & (hopefully) good news from my writerly community at large. (Psst! That means YOU!)

May this year bring an abundance of joy and happiness to all who hold each other dear and remember: every day can be a holiday. Celebrate!


Thanks to whomever sent me this--I love the parody shots the best!

Just A *Little* Heart Attack

I keep thinking about this.

Every time I watch it, I think about my life and what I think just "is" and about taking things for granted and Go Red for Women. I think about what it was like to be a teenage girl looking forward to being an adult and that these are the ladies I write for. This is the future for them. My "now".

And yes, it probably has something to do with my Gender Studies background that I keep considering this, turning it around in my mind, but it also has a lot to do with the embarrassing fact that I see *me* in this picture. I see my Mom. And my sister. And my best girlfriend. And a lot of amazing women I know who are struggling with the juggling and don't think for a moment about who they are in the picture; putting themselves and their health (physical, psychological, emotional) last.

It scares me. It scared me then. It scares me now.

I listened to Allison Pearson (author of I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT, which is now being released as a movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker) in an interview on NPR and what struck me was this one (in my opinion: stupid/insulting) question where the interviewer asked why, having realized how difficult it was to balance work and motherhood after having one baby, would she decide to have another child? After mentally sputtering behind the wheel of my car, I was able to process her response and what really got me was this: rather than answer the question by delving down a road of righteous WTF-ery, Ms. Pearson had an amazing perspective: Instead of asking why she, and millions of women liker her who are part of the workforce and want to have a family, should change her life's plans to fit into what "work" demands, why doesn't "work" shift to accommodate women so that they can have their partners and future families, too? It was an interesting "Ah ha!" moment. One which is long in coming.

Are we closer now? Are things better? What are the costs of doing/not doing so? (Sort of like the costs in the video above?)

I was concerned about this as a teenager, being all revved up about Women's Rights and Equality and wanting to have a good education, a great career, and eventually be a (hopefully great) wife and mother, too. I wanted to have time for friends, career advancement, exercise and travel. I could make it all work, surely! But how was I going to do this? How would it all fit in? How did other mothers do it? I thought I'd ask around. I ran workshops for women and girls, one of which was called SuperMom Is A Myth where we explored the inherited ideas about what women should do/ought to do/are able to do and the key distinction that the *ability* to do anything is not the same as the expectation to *do* everything...especially all on your own. (Or it doesn't "count" somehow because asking for help shows weakness or some such malarky. Don't get me started.) And I asked moms how they might advise someone as if they were the daughters, granddaughters, nieces, or mentees who really wanted to know how to have it all. I remember the President of Ms. magazine on a panel answering thusly: "You can have it all. You just cannot have it all at once." I try to remember than when I have moments like this.

So I think about this video and Allison Pearson's Kate Reddy and most of all I think about my messy house, my desk full of paperwork, and a To Do list with "exercise" or "social time" not even on it, and I thought I might stop and wave a little flag to you and yours asking you to check in with yourselves, your sisters, best girlfriends, moms and make sure they're taking care of themselves because we can't do it all and shouldn't alone.

Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bone

It occurs to me that I have not yet raved about a book in a while.

This should by no means imply that I haven't read any good books lately, but I'll admit that I've had a terrible time finding another book that can compare to this one that so utterly floored me. Does this happen to you? Where the short-term options all seem less so because your heart isn't in it, having already been won-over? Then you understand my difficulty. I read a book like this over the summer and have yet to fully recover.

Enough of a tease? Let me tell you about the one that stopped me in my tracks at BEA; the one whose ripples still lap at the edges of my mind with vivid images and complex characters and beautiful turns of phrases that still resonate long, long, long after I sat craving more after the last page had turned: I'm raving about Laini Taylor's DAUGHTER OF SMOKE & BONE.



What can I say that won't be too spoilery? Hmm. Karou has blue hair. She is an art student in Prague who sketches nudes, eats goulash, and on the side, collects teeth for her otherworldly guardian, Brimstone. She has a best friend, an ex-boyfriend, and a pretty amazing sketchbook. And there's a really hot guy (pun intended) with golden eyes rimmed in black, like a jaguar, who is leaving hand prints on doors all over the world. Oh, and everything you *think* you've figured out in the beginning of the story is wrong--dead wrong--in all the right ways.

That should do it.

I am an unapologetic fan of art and culture, myth, and folklore as well as having a dark delight in making the brain do a one-eighty, and I can say confidently that this book has it ALL! The only thing I could rightly compare it to was an early Neal Stephenson book, SNOW CRASH; the sole example of a book combining avatars, computer hackers, skateboarding, class wars, Kaballah, the Mob, and pizza delivery service. (And, c'mon, how can you *not* love a book whose main character is named Hiro Protagonist?) It's this conglomeration of details that seem disparate or only tangentially connected that are somehow artfully combined into an incredibly detailed, tight-knit whole that is at the same time touching and surprising, monstrous and amazing, empathic and deeply personal and confronting and cackling evilly all the while as the reader's head spins with each new twist, somehow just shy of popping off completely.

Yep, it's that kind of book.

Highly recommended but be warned: it raises the bar for every story thereafter. Read with caution: this book will blow you away!

No Small Thing

Cross-posted from my post at The Enchanted Inkpot

What is it about the smallest heroes who capture our hearts? We so want the "little guy" to win, to cheer the underdog, to experience the small and (seemingly) weak and helpless to overcome the (perceived) mighty evil. What is it that we see in ourselves that we project onto the Hobbits, the Borrowers, the Littles, and Little Princes, the Stuarts, and Despereauxs, and Alices (who at one time may be big, and another, very, very small)? Why are so many fantasy characters tiny folk with great, big hearts?*

[image error]
Our hero. The biggest thing about him is his courage (and his feet)!

For me, I think that there is something fragile and precious about the hearts and minds of young readers, and that is a quality that stays with us and shapes the way we dream up our fantasy worlds and characters. Imagine the world through a child's eyes: seeing the world and the grown-ups and all of their wild, confusing dramas as so much bigger than we are and so terrible in their power that to try to stand against it is almost unthinkable--we'd have to invent a world in which to level the playing field where, as Maurice Sendak might put it, we could be "the most wildest thing of all." (That changes the "innocent/precious" child into a power worth reckoning, gleefully vengeful and benevolent in equal measure.)


As far as wish-fulfillment, Max did it best!

Fantasy is able to mold the world around the smallest persons living among the taller, more powerful people who Make The Rules and allow them to become champions of the tiniest voices lost in the crowd. Whether dolls or faeries, pigs or rabbits or mice (or mice or mice), three unfortunate orphans or the one orphan Boy Who Lived; these miniscule heroes stand up to make a difference, not only for themselves but for their world as a whole and we, the wide-eyed reader, cheer them on because we know what it's like to feel small, we know what it's like to be ignored, we know that quiet, helplessness when things seem Too Big, Too Complicated, Too Scary, Too Difficult for us to understand what to do and so we should just sit quiet and let someone else make the decisions instead of standing up for ourselves and for others.**

But a hero doesn't do that. A hero takes action.


A true hero speaks up. Even if they are only a Very Small Animal asking for help.

We search for that little hero inside all of us and place them in a Big World with Big Problems to prove that it's possible to do what's right no matter how small you are (or feel). Like Mrs. Frisby, you can make a difference, take a stand like Lucy, change the rules like Keladry, Protector of the Small, start a revolution like Katniss Everdeen & even, like Dorothy, find your own way home. There is something immensely powerful in that story: the one where the little guy (or girl) wins. It's something like hope, a little like wishing, and captures the true essence of heroism.

And that is no small thing.



* As opposed to the underdogs who are Big Damn Heroes...but that's another fandom.
** P.S. This feeling never really goes away, of course, even after we grow up.

Today's Epiphany: Popovers

Yesterday, I had an epiphany: Popovers.

Now stay with me... I was driving home when suddenly I was in the mood for popovers. I adore baked goods and am pretty good with sweets, but I tend to muck it up when it's something bready like rolls or pizza dough or popovers. I knew I didn't have the King Arthur's Flour mix that I rely upon for all my popover needs and knew that I hadn't seen it in the stores in a long time. I was quietly mourning the fact that I could not have popovers when this very simple thought occurred to me: I have flour. I have eggs. I have milk. And I have recipe books and the Internet. I could make popovers if I tried! Having never made popovers from scratch, it was amazing to me that I had never done it but there was no reason that I couldn't try because I had all the *ingredients* for popovers.


Haunted by visions of bready goodness.

I went home, cracked open my Joy of Cooking cookbook, found that popovers are incredibly easy to make and followed the recipe, turned on the oven, and voilà: popovers! They weren't perfect, having that half-sunken quality and one or two were all but hollow shells, but all in all it was a good attempt and I got to share hot, buttery popovers thick with jam. It was *exactly* what I wanted.

You know where this is going, don't you?

Everyone can write a story, but lots of people stop themselves before they start, believing that they need something "else" before they can do it. They need a recipe, like a MFA degree or a background in Literature to be legit, or the fear of "getting it wrong" keeps them from even trying. So I'm here to say, with a reheated popover in hand, that you—yes, *YOU*—already have everything you need to write a novel.

Check this list:

1) You have a brain. Good. You need one of those because it's possible you'll lose it once in a while when writing.
2) You are literate. Because if you're not, you wouldn't be on this blog reading this list, natch?
3) You have a pen, pencil, paper, laptop, desktop or other writing implement and somewhere on which words can be stored. Hi-tech or low-tech is up to you, otherwise you need a recording device.
4) You are alive. You have access to the vast inspirational brouhaha that is life, the universe, and all the people in it. Fascinating place. Interesting creatures. Vivid colors. You name it, it's here. (And if it's not "here" here, you can bet that you're just the person to make it up!)

Time + Perseverance + Working Brain = voilà: Novel!*

I'm not saying that it will be perfect—this is a first draft after all—but it is amazingly satisfying to get to the words "The End" and marvel that you made the whole thing from scratch! It might be thin in some places, harder in others, it might need more of this or a lot less of that, but it will be real—the realization of that thing you've been craving to do all along—and the biggest thing you were missing was the knowledge that You Can Do This.

So let me just say: You Can Do This!

You have all the ingredients to make your own novel, so sit down, know you can, and get cookin'!



* I know. I know. If only it were that easy, then everyone would do it. (P.S. Everyone can do it, but few of them will.)

Heroism and Villiany

Sometimes I plan my posts in advance and others I pull out of a list of possible topics I've scribbled down for later use. I'd originally planned to write about heroism and had forgotten the date, then balked when I realized it was 9-11. The word "hero" is no longer something I can toss around lightly, much the same way as having children made it almost impossible for me to write blithely about putting pregnant women or infants in danger--the fiction no longer meant the same thing as it did. (Or did it? These things always had weight and I'd naively ignored it.) Despite everything, I want to still talk about the idea of heroism and villainy because now, more than ever, it resonates as a force in writing and in life.

Villains rarely see themselves as villains. Unless you're of the "Bwahahaha!" variety or sport secret identities like Vordak or Dr. Horrible, a person usually doesn't seek to do evil for evil's sake, most often it's evil actions in the name of a "good" or "righteous" cause...at least to that person. Similarly, true heroes don't see themselves as heroes out to do something heroic unless, again, they're of the "I'll save you!" variety or have secret identities like Metro Man or Mr. Incredible. Arguably, the best characters (and people) are those who do what they've always done despite facing unusual and often extreme circumstances; their ordinary, everyday inclinations are seen as extraordinary because in the worst of times, rarely do we get to see people sticking to their principles. This is what makes true heroes, tragic heroes, willing sacrifices, and the most despicable of villains. It was what allowed Rosa Parks insist on keeping her seat on the bus and what allowed Adolf Hitler to conduct mass genocide while being a husband and father. It is baffling, but most of true life is.

I once heard that to be "extraordinary" was to be "extra-ordinary", meaning that by being yourself and who you've always been despite how your circumstances might change and pressure you to do otherwise, you will stand out because you are being more like yourself instead of more like what other people expect you to be.

Dizzying, isn't it?

I think of books like THE CHOCOLATE WAR or THE WAVE, THE LORD OF THE FLIES or LITTLE BROTHER where it was easy to give in to what is happening and what happens when you do or don't. I think a big part of the dystopian trend today is the want to rebel against complacency that is a lazy sort of evil, evil that happens because "that's just how things are" mentality rules on the backs of those in lesser positions of power and that rank and passion are so completely teen--it taps into that want to be extraordinary by standing for our principles instead of being one of the crowd. Kick it up to 10 and you get books like THE HUNGER GAMES or UGLIES, where even "ordinary" is "extraordinary" to the reader and the main character is thus doubly-so.

But then again, that's fiction.

In the wake of 9-11, I think of this and am convinced that there were no firefighters or police or emergency personnel who thought, "I am going to be a hero if I do this." Instead, I believe these were men and women doing their job to the best of their abilities, selflessly putting themselves in harm's way in order to keep others safe and alive, just as they always had done and acted during the rest of their lives and careers, despite the fact that the Twin Towers fell. I don't think the pilots of those awful planes thought, "I am going to be a villain if I do this." I believe they thought that their actions were a statement for a cause that they believed in and the benefits--whatever they imagined that they would be--were worth the cost in their minds. It's impossible to commit such atrocities without buy-in, envisioning that this must be for some Greater (it's hard to even type the word) "Good". No one thinks of themselves as evil. No one knows how history will remember them. In those moments, these people were the essence of who they always claimed to be and that moment of their lives becomes frozen in time. It is we, those remaining, who are left to interpret what is ordinary and what is extraordinary.

Everyone would like to be the hero of their own story. Even (or especially) the villains. But it's important to remember that it is the after that determines the "Happily Ever After", the Days of Remembrance, the anniversaries, and the warnings passed down from generation to generation, revering the true heroes and reminding us to recognize villainy, from discrimination to bullying, from acquiescence to accomplice, both in fiction and in life.

Never forget.

Smart Words by Smarter Folks Than Me

I figured I should do a special follow-up post about bullies, bullying, my own experience, sage advice and other errata since DEAR BULLY has now hit the shelves and NPR and the like. However, it's already in the book and, frankly, my bullying experience was pretty minor--there are stories in there that'll make your toes curl and your heart thud in sympathy (or anger). Instead, my SIL forwarded me one of the "celebrity spots" and since everyone here knows how much I admire Joss Whedon, I thought to include his insight here. (Originally posted at rookiemag.com.)

Joss Whedon

I went to the same school, with the same people, for 10 years. I knew everyone—including the teachers, as my mother taught history there. In the middle of tenth grade my mother took a sabbatical abroad and I found myself going from Riverdale Country School, in the Bronx, to Winchester College, a 600-year-old all-male boarding school in southern England. I had never traveled alone. I had barely left the house. Also, I was quite small.

Winchester is timelessly beautiful, famously academic and a bastion of blithe cruelty. Everyone else was used to this; I was the only new kid. Older boys relentlessly bullied younger, and teachers (called "dons") bullied everyone, often physically. All the students, even boys younger than I, knew each other and came from the same social strata. The school had its own language—literally; there was book of "notions" to be memorized and tested. And on top of it all, I was of course that most dread creation, an American. It was clear to me from the start that I must take an active role in my survival.

Rule One: DON'T BE LIKE THEM. I knew I was going to be mocked as an outsider and a weirdo, so I established my weird cred before anyone had time to get their mock on. Our study area was a great room ringed by tiny wooden cubicles (called "toys," in both the plural and the singular—Know Your Notions!), about 50 to a room. On the first day of term I posted a notice outside my toys that was pure nonsense, a portentous abstraction that conveyed the simple message that ridiculing me would not only be weak and redundant, but might actually please me in some unseemly way. As boy after boy read the notice and either laughed or puzzled, I could feel a small patch of safe turf firm up under my feet.

Rule Two: BE LIKE THEM. My next defensive aid appeared quite unexpectedly, as we were all bunking down (12 to an ice-cold room) for the night. All the boys started doing a bit from an episode of Monty Python (which was a cool thing to do back then—no, you're mistaken; it was). When there was a lull, I unthinkingly chimed in with the next line. I was answered with unfiltered silence, and then one of the older boys called out from the corner, "OK. He's in." He literally said that. Like a cheesy movie: "He's in." And I, in whatever limited capacity I have to be, was. Speaking their language startled them as much as making up my own had.

Rule the Most: F@#K 'EM. We all want to be accepted. If possible, liked. Loved. But nobody ever got to be popular by desperately wanting to be. (Well, maybe Madonna.) Whether you crave attention or anonymity, you'll be thwarted if you focus on those goals. I was actually gunning for a bit of both, but I only succeeded, in the end, because I knew I had the right to be myself. The judgments of others, however painful, would always be external. I was fiercely calculated about establishing myself as someone not to be trodden on (I'd had plenty of that from my brothers, thank you), but it really only worked because I knew, as much as a tiny-15-year old can, who I was. I was a short, annoying, existential, girl-repelling mess—but I KNEW that. I honored that. I defended that. And as intimidated as I super-incredibly was in that alien environ, I never lost that.

Rule Where You Realize I'm Super-Old and Skip to the Next Article: LEARN. High school is, among other things, school. If you have teachers worth a damn, stop worrying about where you fit in and work for them. Knowledge will serve you long after you've forgotten the names of everyone you feared or admired. And will prove subtly invaluable the next time you find yourself in a new situation, trying to fit in. You know the old saying: Knowledge is power.

And it's always, always about power. (Should this have been a Rule?) Everyone has it. Not everyone knows how to express it. And high school is, institutionally and hormonally, an easy place to forget you have it, particularly since so many people are focused on establishing or abusing it. But the power people take from others is nothing next to the power that comes with simple self-acceptance, with being comfortable in your (changing) skin. It's not just Survival of the Fit-ins. There's room for something new.


* Again, please note that these are the smart words of , not me, and I have never been to an all-boys English boarding school nor had brothers who tormented me. I have, in fact, gone to school in England, can quote Monty Python, had a brother who adored me, and was a girl-repelling mess...hence why I hung out with guys who had wicked senses of humor and could quote Monty Python, too. There are all types in high school. Find yours.

There Are More Of Us Than You Think

DEAR BULLY is coming Sept. 6th. Don't know what I'm talking about? USA Today does here.

70 authors tell their stories, and I'm proud to be one of them!