Dawn Metcalf's Blog, page 41

More Pretty! More Giveaways! And a Secret Surprise...

Hello again! Recall my previous announcement about giving away bookmarks? Well, I'm doing it again but *this* time, there's something special going on...



Shhhhhhh. You can't tell from this picture, but there is a super secret surprise hidden somewhere in these LUMINOUS bookmarks...!

Yes, that's right:

***THERE IS A SUPER SECRET SURPRISE HIDDEN IN THESE BOOKMARKS!***

Every week in March I will be revealing one hint for figuring out the secret hidden in the LUMINOUS bookmarks. I'll also be giving away more bookmarks each week until the answer is revealed! Of course, if you are one of the lucky ones to win a bookmark during one of these giveaways, you get to be one of the first to figure it out, access the Secret Surprise, and gain an early extra entry to the ARC Giveaway in April and the Grand Prize Giveaway in June celebrating the launch of LUMINOUS!

With me so far? Good!

So, here it is again: the first 30 people who comment below will get a signed bookmark as well as an early entry into my next Giveaway Contest which includes a SIGNED ARC of LUMINOUS! You also get to have a chance to figure out what this first hint means:

Secret Surprise Hint #1: "blushing letters"

No clue what I'm talking about? Enter the giveaway, win a bookmark & find the secret!

Official-Type Rules:

1. Leave a comment below so I know you stopped by & an email so I can ping you back!
2. Post about this giveaway on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, your blog, etc. Be sure to include your handle/URL in your comment and spread the word! The more the merrier! linkie: http://bit.ly/fXDMO6
3. Come back on March 7th to learn about the next clue that brings you one step closer to your next chance to enter the ARC Giveaway and Grand Prize Giveaway Contest!
4. This bookmark giveaway and its Secret Surprise contest is open Internationally. The ARC and Grand Prize Giveaway are open to US Residents only.

Go! Type! Win!

Why So Serious?

Perhaps you've noticed, horror tropes have taken up starring roles in YA lit: vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, dark fae and your Midnight-In-The-Garden(-of-Good-And-Evil) variety psychopaths have taken center stage by the throat and bit it clean off. And while I'm the first to admit that I'm a total wimp when it comes to straight-up horror, I am a HUGE fan of the snark on stage, screen, and page. So when the two manage to come together, a balancing act of black humor and classy classics, that's *my* kind of magic!



You can keep your 24. This was Kiefer Sutherland in my book.

While there are plenty of good (and bad) vampire movies, there are rarely vampires movies that poke fun while maintaining a balance of horror and dread. It's so easy to spoof and revel in the silly like Joss Whedon's original Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the big screen (of which, like Highlander and The Matrix, there should be only one), or pendulum swing into melodrama like the last Bram Stoker's Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola. For me, Lost Boys was a cult classic romp through the usual lore with a lot of (pardon the pun) biting humor on a bright 1980's backdrop with the Coreys being Coreys (or Frogs, as it were).


I give it two BWAHAHAHAHAHAs!

Of course, there's nothing wrong with a romp that manages to hold a little horror gold and tender moments of true chill along with the laughs and never have I seen it better done than in the zombie spoof Sean of the Dead which was too too too funny as well as surprisingly poignant and frightening with sparks of brilliance. Of course, zombies are (again, pardon the pun) ripe for just about any type of humor, but unless it was Michael J. Fox in a well-groomed orangutan suit, it's hard to say the same for the werewolves. But there is a much older cult classic, Ginger Snaps (including Ginger Snaps 2 and Ginger Snaps Back); I challenge you to find a better example of headstrong girls given the keys to melodramatic, wanton mayhem, blood and destruction that doesn't involve heavy artillery! One thing's for sure, no one could take themselves seriously in any of this.


This is one of those "It's so bad, it's fantastic!" or "It's so brilliantly awful!" movies you've got to show to everyone. I love it.

And then there is a tie in my mind for the Top Snarky Psychopath (which is not to be confused with the Top Psychopath, which is also a tie between Jack Nicholsen's Jack Torrence and Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter); on the one hand, there is a cult favorite that also hails from the 80's: J.D. in Heathers (and I know a ton of you have no idea what this movie is and you should rectify this at once because L-rd knows you'll never see a movie like this made again!) and given that I'm not a huge fan of Christian Slater and I was a huge fan of Heath Ledger, you can understand how much I admire that teenage whack-job when I hold it up to the current pinnacle: the Joker in The Dark Knight.


Heath Ledger's Joker got it right. Probably why that Batman movie will always be one of my favorites!

So while I can't pretend to be immune to the dark lure of horror in its most classic sense, I'm more often swayed by the sly, wry and silly--one clever step to the left of the spoof. In my heart, the snark is the trendsetter, bridging the emo to its twin guffaw, and the most quotable lines can live on for years. Or maybe just one catchy theme song...



Do you prefer tongue-in-cheek or fangs-in-neck type of horror?

Kick or Get Kicked

Yesterday I found out that I qualified for for Nidan exam; I'm on my way to second degree black belt!

This was similar to the feeling of getting The Call from my editor, learning that I was going to be a real published author. Both those goals are happening within the next few months and both of these have been a long time coming with winding roads towards the end in sight.


The end in sight looks very pretty with its matching envelope and formal embossed stamp!


I didn't become interested in karate until I met my Better-Than-Boyfriend. Until then, I thought that martial arts was for macho-macho-men or women who had something bad happen to them. (Later I joked that I'm obviously not a macho-macho-man so meeting him must have qualified as the "something bad" that happened.) I took a few group lessons with other students in my boyfriend's pseudo-class on campus, but by the time we'd graduated and moved out, I was hooked and decided to get my Shodan (first degree black belt) under his teacher; I didn't want any awkwardness or thoughts of nepotism spoiling my pursuit.

Note that I'd *already decided* that I was going to be a black belt. (Of course, I'd also joked that it was a matter of survival. When I realized that I was a sensei's girlfriend, the movies all say that I would be a ripe target for kidnappings, unarmed robbers, or helpless damsel in some anti-gravity karate kick-off between rival dojos. I figured I'd better be prepared!)


Okay, I'm no Rene Russo, (and thankfully my husband's no Mel Gibson), but you get the idea.

Happy ending? I achieved my first degree black belt in 2001 and continued my training at my (now husband's) dojo with the rest of my friends. It's typical to train for 2-3 years between belts and I was well on my way when I began serious training for my qualifying test in 2003...but then had to stop when I discovered that I was pregnant. (And since the little darling was square on my sciatic nerve, it nixed training of any kind.) One baby, 46 lbs. gained and lost, and a couple of years later, I was back in training in 2005...then had to stop when I discovered that I was pregnant. Complications, new baby, 46 lbs. gained and lost, and a couple of years later, I had a car accident and that blew another year or so, which put me on track for where I am now.

10 years later, I am about to test for my second degree black belt.


This is the face of 'I Am Not Stopping.'

Writing was certainly not the same journey, being earlier and (in some ways) both faster and slower than pursuing martial arts. I don't even consciously remember deciding that I wanted to be a writer, that's just always what I was. My first full novel was written at age 11 and 365 pages, equal in many ways to a) how many days it took to write it & b) how many characters I wrote into the winding plot. I wrote a novel every year until I turned 17 and went off to college where I wrote a lot of research papers, essays, theses and various magazine short stories and bad poetry. I continued writing novels, but they were often trumped by Life After College also known as "Reality" which left very little room for anything else besides a rude awakening.

Fast forward through odd jobs, determined volunteering, a Master's Degree, and moving to the East Coast to being married with children, still writing to impress my ficus and desk drawer, and wondering why I hadn't magically been "discovered" yet. My husband pointed out that I might do better if I actually sent something somewhere and joined SCBWI. As is the case in many things, he was 100% correct. 15 months after sitting down to the keys at SCBWI.org and attending that first regional conference, I had an offer on a partial novel known as SKIN & BONES.

What a lovely, fairy tale story! Happy endings all around! Right?

Well...

In one way, yes! I had a deal! A book deal! My lifelong dream was coming true! What I did not know was that I was supposed to have a "web presence", a blog, Twitter, Facebook, (and back then MySpace was recommended, now it's Tumblr), I should finish this book and write new ones, prepare for a series, sketch out proposals. Did I have a marketing plan? A web designer? A graphic designer? Did I know the contact information of everyone I'd ever met? It became a real whirwind wake-up call to what it takes to be a professional writer nowadays instead of merely someone who was typing as the cats sat in her lap.

And then came the first 6-month bump. No problem! Fall to spring? No big deal.
And then came the second 6-month bump. Um, changing debut years? Okay, if we're still on!
And somewhere in there I lost my first agent and went through the indescribable joy of finding a second agent with a book not even out yet. *whew*
And rewrites, revisions, a title change...
And then came the third 6-month bump. Uhh. This is still happening, right? Right?

It was happening. And it is happening. But it can play serious mumbledy-peg with your sanity if you stop and sink all your energy into just one project, so the good news was that I had TONS to distract me through these minor setbacks and a great crew to help me through the transitions (not unlike the pregnancy and birth process, too, but more like LJ communities, karate classmates, and awesome agents as opposed to family members and a doula).

And so...here I am. Or about to be!

Both paths have been weird and wonderful and I can see the finish line to having accomplished something I've wanted for *so* long! So it's a honor and a privilege to share them with those on similar paths.

Don't give up. You can do it. There is no timeline for awesome.

Kick or get kicked. *Hai!*

Zombie-like Habitual Masochism FTW!

First, a Public Service Announcement:

If you entered my last contest (and you know who you are), please reply to your email by Friday, February 25th so you can claim your prize! Otherwise, signed bookmarks will sit here feeling lonely with no one to love them. (Well, until the next giveaway, anyhoo.)



Look at those eyes! She's pining, I tell you!

In other news:

I am so sore, I can barely move. Of course, this won't stop me from going into the dojo today for another 2-4 hour stint in preparation for my "gateway" exam on Wednesday; it's either the first part of the exam or the last hurdle before I enter the final round. Just so you know, this is not about determinism or stubborn will winning the epic fight over couch potatoness, but rather zombie-like, habitual masochism. It's me looking at the clock and going, "Time for karate," in my head, getting suited up, grabbing my keys and going. It's almost automatic at this point. Same time nearly every day. Up, dress, dojo. I am supposed to write an essay about what shifted or changed for me in order to become a second degree black belt and, essentially, this was it:

Because I said so.

*I* decided that this was the year it would happen. It had to happen. (Technically, this is the third time I've decided to have it happen, but both previous attempts at Nidan were interrupted by impending parenthood.) And an interesting thing happened: I put my proverbial foot down, and then I became a second degree black belt. This is also exactly how I became a writer with an offer. Sound simple? It both is and isn't.

It was easy to say that THIS was when I was going to train and be ready at THIS date for THIS exam with the goal of testing by THEN. It was much harder getting into the habit, the point at which it became rote, easy, unconscious and WAAAAAAAY harder to convince the universe to comply. There were last-minute appointments and kids getting sick, birthdays to plan and playdates to juggle, previous commitments and surprise opportunities, major events like going out of town to a Moose Lodge and my beloved parents coming in from out of state, then there was the dietary restrictions of training going head-to-head with Thanksgiving, Channukah, birthdays, New Year's...and all of it were reasonable reasons for not doing what I needed to do. Everyone would understand. Anyone else would do the same. But the truth was, I couldn't do it. And I didn't. I had to be unreasonable.

And—here's the weirdest thing—the universe *moved*.

The world and all its denizens gently shifted to accommodate my completely unreasonable, wildly selfish and bizarrely headstrong request that for 1-2 hours I train and stick to my commitments. Appointments got rescheduled, my husband took the kids, we scraped the money together for a precious hour of babysitting to cover the gap. Work understood, the kids understood, folks at school understood, YA writers on retreat understood, and even strangers who randomly asked why I looked like I was going to keel over and die while wearing black pajamas understood. I'm am on the brink of success because I made a choice and stuck with it and life adjusted around me to fit.

And that, my friends, is writing in a nutshell. Decide. Sit down. Write. The universe will move to allow you to do so. And when it becomes a zombie-like habitual masochism to sit at the keys and belt out your word count at the same time every day, I'll be cheering for you from the dojo wearing my big black belt with two red stripes.

Go! Write! FTW!

Erfolgefreude vs. The Green-Eyed Monster

You hear a lot about the green-eyed monster in this business; writers jealously pointing out this author or that deal and wishing/craving/pining for it to be true for them, too, and that one day we will each have our own international tour, be welcomed on Oprah, have a 7-figure deal. But the truth is that while each of us worries over the future of the publishing industry and our own paths on its winding roads, I can say without a doubt that I haven't met a more supportive, kind & welcoming crew as I have as a YA author.

Conferences like SCBWI and RWA are contact highs of inspiration and mind-blowing brilliance, ALA and BEA and other "rock star" events are like Disneyland on a Sugar Rush for books and their fans, and the chance to sit and talk with other people who are passionate about reading and writing (whether in person or online) is perhaps the brightest spark in the day: it's where we can understand and can be understood, we mere mortals who've been gripped by the Muse behind our keyboards and red pens everywhere. These are our peeps and tweeps. We want everyone to succeed Big Time!

I've been there when people I knew got prestigious awards, jumping up and down along with a crowd of editors, bloggers, and YA librarians; I witnessed someone getting a two-book deal on the phone and I actually screamed at my computer when a friend announced her Significant Deal. I sent an e-card when an online friend finally got an offer from a great agent. It's indescribable, really. It lights me up because they light up, they *so* deserve it, and when good things happen to good people, it's impossible to feel bad about it because it's wonderful & there's more than enough wonderful to go around!

Really, there is.

"How do you measure success?" Because when you look at the numbers or the print run or the PW report, it's only a small indicant of what's been going on for years. I decided I couldn't "rank" books or review them anymore on Goodreads or Amazon because now that I know what it takes to make a book happen, I couldn't be a good judge because I was no longer blind to the struggle. You published a book? You deserve kudos.

So when I went searching for a word to mean "joy at the success of others" (sort of an opposite of "schachenfreude"), the smart and savvy agentess Jennifer Laughran suggested "erfolgefreude": "successes joy", that bubbly feeling when you know someone you know just had something amazing happen!


It's the sort of infectious smile that this improv video gives me every time!

Erfolgefreude. Own it. Love it. The green-eyed monster doesn't stand a chance!

Pretty! Contest! Giveaway!

Look what I got in the mail yesterday:



YES! That's me behind my bookmark! They are way-shiny and purple and pretty and I can't stop looking at them so I want to share it all with YOU!

*** BIG GIVEAWAY CONTEST STARTS NOW! ***

So: the first did I say 30 60 people who comment below will get a signed bookmark as well as an early entry into my Big Giveaway Contest including a SIGNED ARC of LUMINOUS starting March 1st! There will be great prizes and a secret surprise and it all starts with getting your hands on one of these bookmarks. *wink wink* Lots more to come!

Rules! (These things always need rules...)

1. Leave a comment below so I know you stopped by & an email so I can ping you back!
2. Post about this giveaway on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, your blog, etc. Be sure to include your handle/URL and spread the word! The more the merrier!
3. Come back on March 1st to learn about the Big Giveaway Contest and how you are already entered to win *BIG*! Trust me, this is going to be worth checking out. ;-)

Go! Type! Win!

Kiss Me, Kill Me

So I was away in Branson on a writer's retreat and managed not to get any writing done. (In fact, I think any time at the laptop was spent with the Delete key.) Yet I got a ton of information about writing, the business, my project ideas, and associative brilliance just by being around creative people actively being creative and the excitement as they shared the things they were most passionate about. I call this the "popcorn" effect, watching someone light up when they share what matters to them most. It's a total contact high.

The retreat wasn't formally organized so much as mutually-agreed-upon taking care of one another, lapsing into long bouts of silence or loud games of foosball with an almost unconscious pact between folks across a very long table while various taxidermy animals glared down from on high. Everyone chipped-in with the cooking, the cleaning, the shopping trips and the music in this sort of symbiotic amoeba of creative consciousness while snowed-in on a hill overlooking a lake in a moose lodge with 23 YA authors and intermittent Internet and lighting. There were some organized events like watchmebe Jackson Pearce's live chat shows and the nightly share known as "kindergarten" where we went around the room answering a question of the evening.

One question was about what we love most about other people's writing and what were our own strengths and weaknesses in our own writing; something that came up was that writers felt comfortable either writing kissing scenes or fighting scenes, but never both. That got me thinking about my own writing because I don't really feel comfortable writing either one.

To be fair, that's not 100% true because I'm familiar enough with both karate and kissing that I can make a plausible scene out of the *ahem* blow-by-blow accounts, but really these are both difficult ideas because they are attempting to describe an immediate reaction to something that taps into an area of our lives both instinctual and overwhelming that happens in an instant. By nature, the more words your use to describe it, the longer it takes. (This is why you don't use the word "suddenly" in writing because it steals the momentum of the moment if you require the reader to take the time to read the word "suddenly"!) If it's a lingering kiss or a slow-motion cleave of a sword through someone's innards, which are now "outers", then yes, this can work; most of the time, though, it's one of the hardest things to do well. Like humor. Or Shakespearean dialogue.

After thinking about it for far too long, I concluded that one of my strengths is actually the sensory build-up, the anticipation of the moment; the wanting, the shuddering, the shivering "If Only" that tantalizes just before the "Yes" or "No". Much like the threat of violence or the smell of rain before the storm, it's the moment before the Fall that works best for me.

What do you think are YOUR strengths and weaknesses? What turns YOU on in the books you love most?


Talk about love? Here's the old U2 Batman song set to a new montage of Heath Ledger's Joker. Excellent!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Reason #4,389,012 Why I Adore Jackson Pearce

You wouldn't think being snowed in a moose lodge with creepy taxidermy, scarce food, and intermittent Internet getting no writing done would be fun...but it is! Oh, yes, it is! (Mostly due to 22 other fun and funny YA authors, including the fabulous Jackson Pearce* and her Vlog O' Doom.)

The last day was an extra 25% Bonus Day of Snow which canceled flights, inspired some interesting cooking possibilities and veiled threats of cannibalism. This, of course, spawned the confessionals:



* My husband said it was a good thing that I said she was adorable, funny & talented because he suspected he'd get in trouble saying it first.


...and by the way, this song is *still* stuck in my head. Thanks, Jackson. (And thanks to everybody from Moose of Wonder!)

And, Yes, I Did Get Her Back

Gakked lovingly from watchmebe , Jackson Pearce's blog!

Vlogging Virgin No More

I am not so much afraid of technology as ludicrously bad at it. That's at least one of the reasons I have never vlogged. (And maybe an acute stage fright around tiny lenses.) Nevertheless, I've been thoroughly enjoying the live chat line up of the past few days at Branson and now it's *my* turn TONIGHT at 8pm EST on http://www.livestream.com/jacksonpearce along with these fine folks you might have heard of or read:

Jackson Pearce (SISTERS RED, SWEETLY)
Natalie Standiford (CONFESSIONS OF THE SULLIVAN SISTERS, HOW TO SAY GOODBYE IN ROBOT)
Jeri Smith-Ready (SHADE, WICKED GAME)
Maggie Stiefvater (SHIVER, LINGER, FOREVER, LAMENT, BALLAD, MERRY SISTERS OF FATE)

My thoughts? Wow! Cool! Yikes!

Please come and show your support of YA authors, get some questions answered, or just witness me flail around while facing a camera. (The loss of my vlogging virginity? Technological deflowering? It all sounds vaguely naughty and, most likely, I'll be too!)

Spread the word and bring your questions & friends. It'll be lonely there without you!

Tweet, FB, RT or whatever. :-)