Dawn Reno Langley's Blog, page 5
November 1, 2016
More Winners -- New Giveaway
I have been spending a lot of time at the post office lately. It seems like I scheduled at least four Giveaways to end right around the same time (which was stupid on my part! *smirks*), so I spent a good portion of my time writing notes, wrapping books, addressing everything, filling out international paperwork, then waiting in line at the post office, and waiting again as the clerk completed appropriate forms. *Phew!*
I imagine all of those books going to different locations around the world and wonder how the readers will feel about the words I've written. I love to hear how people think (even though it might not always be easy to hear), and I'm smart enough to realize that you, the reader, is the best person to tell me whether I'm doing my job: entertain my readers.
So, there's one more Goodreads Giveaway before I take a break from technology for the last two weeks of November (NaNoWriMo month!)
THE SILVER DOLPHIN, the story of a marriage on the rocks and a community of dolphins (and people!) in danger, will be available as a Giveaway until November 10.
Best of luck with your entries! If you are reading any of my books, I'd love to hear from you!
Peace,
D
The Silver Dolphin
I imagine all of those books going to different locations around the world and wonder how the readers will feel about the words I've written. I love to hear how people think (even though it might not always be easy to hear), and I'm smart enough to realize that you, the reader, is the best person to tell me whether I'm doing my job: entertain my readers.
So, there's one more Goodreads Giveaway before I take a break from technology for the last two weeks of November (NaNoWriMo month!)
THE SILVER DOLPHIN, the story of a marriage on the rocks and a community of dolphins (and people!) in danger, will be available as a Giveaway until November 10.
Best of luck with your entries! If you are reading any of my books, I'd love to hear from you!
Peace,
D
The Silver Dolphin
October 17, 2016
THANKS to Giveaway Entrants!
I would love to personally thank everyone who's entered any of the Giveaways I've scheduled for my novels and The Writer's Hand Journals in the past couple of months. It's been nice to see the books get attention, and I do hope that some of you who read my work become readers who'll like some of my other books as well.
I feel especially grateful to those readers who've already posted reviews of the books they've won. It means a lot to a writer when a reader takes the time to craft a review in order to help other readers decide whether or not to read that work.
When I'm sitting behind the laptop screen struggling with a character who wants to run off and marry the butcher rather than become the town's librarian or the end of a story doesn't carry the emotional impact I'd wanted it to and I can't figure out how to fix it, I am inspired by the readers who've taken the time to contact me. If I read an email or a Facebook message, see a Tweet or receive a text from someone who wants to tell me that one of my stories affected them, it truly makes my day. Hell, it makes my year!
I know that readers have a million choices, and I'm more than honored if one of those choices is a book I've written.
So, again. Thank you to everyone who took a moment to enter one of my Giveaways, or even better, took the time and energy to review one of my books. I'm thrilled!
Peace.
I feel especially grateful to those readers who've already posted reviews of the books they've won. It means a lot to a writer when a reader takes the time to craft a review in order to help other readers decide whether or not to read that work.
When I'm sitting behind the laptop screen struggling with a character who wants to run off and marry the butcher rather than become the town's librarian or the end of a story doesn't carry the emotional impact I'd wanted it to and I can't figure out how to fix it, I am inspired by the readers who've taken the time to contact me. If I read an email or a Facebook message, see a Tweet or receive a text from someone who wants to tell me that one of my stories affected them, it truly makes my day. Hell, it makes my year!
I know that readers have a million choices, and I'm more than honored if one of those choices is a book I've written.
So, again. Thank you to everyone who took a moment to enter one of my Giveaways, or even better, took the time and energy to review one of my books. I'm thrilled!
Peace.
October 16, 2016
LAST DAY for Giveway!
The second in my Writer's Hand Journals series, Setting/Place, is entering its last day in its Giveaway--so I'm inviting you to put your name in the drawing, if you haven't already.
One of the reasons I started writing The Writer's Hand Journals is because I've always been inspired by "writerly" quotes. I used them in my classrooms when I taught both at the high school and college levels. I'd write a quote on the board first thing in the morning and ask the students to respond to it during the first five minutes of class. Sometimes the quote was from current events, sometimes from a classic poem, sometimes from a great philosopher. The students became used to seeing those quotes and sometimes before the end of the semester, they'd start bringing in their own. It became a meta-cognition process. They had been inspired to think and were now thinking about that process itself.
I like to think that most of the students left my classroom with a new appreciation of literature, even if it was just for the tiniest of bites of literature: a sentence or two, a quote.
In my university-level writing classes, I had a different use for the quotations. They were offered as an example for a certain style of writing or for studying structure or applying metaphors. They were a tool in lessons on characterization and dialogue, and as this particular journal focuses, on Setting and Place.
There are so many great books that have successfully incorporated the setting or place of the story as a character that I could find thousands of quotes to offer as examples. Think of Oz in Frank Baum's stories or the various kingdoms in the Game of Thrones series. How about the sea in Moby Dick? Or the Carolina coast in Pat Conroy's books? What would Gone with the Wind be like without Tara? And that incredibly creepy hotel in the White Mountains where Jack Nicholson played the insane writer in Stephen King's The Shining? That story would be totally different if that hotel were a one-story motel on the beach in Florida.
I personally think that writers who don't fully explore the place where their characters live, who don't take the time to paint a literary picture of the setting, miss out on completing the world into which we invite our readers every time we start the first sentence of a work of fiction.
The Writer's Hand Journals: Setting/Place The Writer's Hand Journal: Setting/Place
is meant to offer a place where one can escape to the worlds created by a hundred different writers. You can respond to each quote, ask questions, think about creating a world like that one, or simply write about your own world that day. The quotes offer inspiration for writers, but they are an invitation for readers into those worlds, both familiar and new to us.
I am truly enjoying choosing the quotes for The Writer's Hand Journals. It reminds me of those days in the classroom and the moments when one of the quotes reached into a child's heart to settle there for a while.
Now it's time to get on to the new one: Literary Families!
Peace,
Dawn
One of the reasons I started writing The Writer's Hand Journals is because I've always been inspired by "writerly" quotes. I used them in my classrooms when I taught both at the high school and college levels. I'd write a quote on the board first thing in the morning and ask the students to respond to it during the first five minutes of class. Sometimes the quote was from current events, sometimes from a classic poem, sometimes from a great philosopher. The students became used to seeing those quotes and sometimes before the end of the semester, they'd start bringing in their own. It became a meta-cognition process. They had been inspired to think and were now thinking about that process itself.
I like to think that most of the students left my classroom with a new appreciation of literature, even if it was just for the tiniest of bites of literature: a sentence or two, a quote.
In my university-level writing classes, I had a different use for the quotations. They were offered as an example for a certain style of writing or for studying structure or applying metaphors. They were a tool in lessons on characterization and dialogue, and as this particular journal focuses, on Setting and Place.
There are so many great books that have successfully incorporated the setting or place of the story as a character that I could find thousands of quotes to offer as examples. Think of Oz in Frank Baum's stories or the various kingdoms in the Game of Thrones series. How about the sea in Moby Dick? Or the Carolina coast in Pat Conroy's books? What would Gone with the Wind be like without Tara? And that incredibly creepy hotel in the White Mountains where Jack Nicholson played the insane writer in Stephen King's The Shining? That story would be totally different if that hotel were a one-story motel on the beach in Florida.
I personally think that writers who don't fully explore the place where their characters live, who don't take the time to paint a literary picture of the setting, miss out on completing the world into which we invite our readers every time we start the first sentence of a work of fiction.
The Writer's Hand Journals: Setting/Place The Writer's Hand Journal: Setting/Place
is meant to offer a place where one can escape to the worlds created by a hundred different writers. You can respond to each quote, ask questions, think about creating a world like that one, or simply write about your own world that day. The quotes offer inspiration for writers, but they are an invitation for readers into those worlds, both familiar and new to us.
I am truly enjoying choosing the quotes for The Writer's Hand Journals. It reminds me of those days in the classroom and the moments when one of the quotes reached into a child's heart to settle there for a while.
Now it's time to get on to the new one: Literary Families!
Peace,
Dawn
October 6, 2016
THE SILVER DOLPHIN back story
Another Giveaway will start in the next few days (and there are several currently in the works), so it's time for another back story.
THE SILVER DOLPHIN is set in Hawaii and the story revolves around the way dolphins have been victims of man-made industries. The main characters, Carrie and Alex Briskin, are a married couple, drawn together by their love for the ocean. Together, they sail a gorgeous boat called The Winsome Blonde, and their life is a magical one -- until Alex is the victim of a horrible boating accident that changes their lives forever.
I spent several weeks in Hawaii, bouncing from island to island, and staying with a friend whose house overlooked a volcanic beach where whales breached constantly. It was on one of those beaches that I had the most mystical experience of my life.
I'd been doing research for my American County Collectibles book and conducted interviews with some really interesting people while on Oahu: an anthropologist named Aunty Malia (Aunty is a term of respect) who taught me all about Hawaiian textiles and carvings and folk art; an artist who lived near the Pipeline on the north coast; the creator of some of the most immense paintings in the world, paintings of whales on the side of skyscrapers, dolphins on water tanks, sea turtles on apartment buildings. I learned about Hawaiian history (and created several magazine articles incorporating the details), antiques, myths, and orchids. The best part was that the people who welcomed us as if we were long-lost members of their family.
But it wasn't all rosey. By the third day, I spasmed in coughs so often that I'd gone through two bottles of cough medicine and had started turning to whiskey and Grand Marniere to ease my aching chest.
When we flew to the big island, I wanted nothing more than to lie on the beach and soak in the sun, hoping that the clear and warm weather would dry up the muck taking over my lungs.
Fred lived on the west coast of the Big Island. His rented house perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking a black volcanic beach, and that black volcanic rock stopped flowing about a mile away from his house. At night, I could see the red rim of the volcano from Fred's bathroom. Gorgeous, but a bit discerning. The black rock a mile away from his house still smoked -- and inched forward a little more every day. The island actually adds mass each year rather than decreasing, like most do. The reason? The volcanic lava trickles down the side of the island into the ocean and turns solid. As a result, the beach disappears almost immediately when a swimmer enters the ocean. The sandy floor drops away and one is immediately swept into waters that feel bottomless.
The other interesting thing about the beach is that it's a nude beach. And, no, I didn't strip to my birthday suit and have a party. I watched other people, though, and to this day, I don't get why you would want to be nude and sit on the sand.
Anyway, the back story . . .
I spent part of every day on those beaches, trying not to speak because that made the cough worse. I let the guys talk to each other and either I listened or I read one of the books I'd brought. Each day I swam in the navy blue waves that slammed against the pilings that stretched like a crescent moon into the wild sea.
I got tossed by the island waves one afternoon, tumbled over and over under the water until I didn't know which way was up. I seriously thought I'd bought the farm, but then I was out and sputtering and much further from the beach than I wanted to be. I dragged myself back to the beach chairs, amazed at how full of tiny black rocks my bathing suit was (and I'd be removing them for at least two days afterward).
The near-drowning incident twisted my back so badly I couldn't move the next day. When my (then) husband Bobby and Fred went out into the waves, I stayed on the beach and watched as they swam with a pod of spinner dolphins that surrounded them like a churning mass of adolescents. I watched the spinners jumping and chasing each other further away, and as I enjoyed their antics, one of the whales breached over and over.
For the last week, I'd been fascinated by the dozens of whales we could see no matter where we stood on the ocean road that encircled the Big Island like a pearl necklace. Each whale had distinctive flukes, each unique and individual like fingerprints, so I knew if I was watching one I'd seen the day before. And when they breached, the sound sometimes echoed into the cove, depending on the distance and the wind. Often the sound snapped like thunder on a late August day.
I knew the whale I was watching at that moment was the same one who'd breached once or twice the day before, but now she'd breached ten or twelve times. Surely that wasn't normal.
I lost sight of Bobby and Fred as I watched the whale and then, as if she'd become a spirit, she was gone.
For long moments, I scanned the ocean, but she was gone, so I returned to watching the guys and the dolphins.
Then a huge black shadow came to the top of the water between where I sat on the beach and where Bobby and Fred swam with the dolphins.
A tiny pointed snout poked through the ocean's surface, then the body followed. A calf. And the mother who'd been breaching pushed up behind it, urging it to stretch for its first breath of air.
The moment froze.
In less than a moment, the new mom and her calf swam away, joining the rest of the pod off the coast of the island, but for that frozen moment, I was given the incredible gift of being the first human being to see that calf -- and perhaps I was the first human she saw, as well.
I sat on that beach and the beginnings of The Silver Dolphin formed in my head. I wanted to use the incredible islands as a backdrop for a story about protecting not only dolphins but also something just as precious and endangered: a good marriage.
Hopefully, I did a good job :-)
Peace,
D
The Silver Dolphin
THE SILVER DOLPHIN is set in Hawaii and the story revolves around the way dolphins have been victims of man-made industries. The main characters, Carrie and Alex Briskin, are a married couple, drawn together by their love for the ocean. Together, they sail a gorgeous boat called The Winsome Blonde, and their life is a magical one -- until Alex is the victim of a horrible boating accident that changes their lives forever.
I spent several weeks in Hawaii, bouncing from island to island, and staying with a friend whose house overlooked a volcanic beach where whales breached constantly. It was on one of those beaches that I had the most mystical experience of my life.
I'd been doing research for my American County Collectibles book and conducted interviews with some really interesting people while on Oahu: an anthropologist named Aunty Malia (Aunty is a term of respect) who taught me all about Hawaiian textiles and carvings and folk art; an artist who lived near the Pipeline on the north coast; the creator of some of the most immense paintings in the world, paintings of whales on the side of skyscrapers, dolphins on water tanks, sea turtles on apartment buildings. I learned about Hawaiian history (and created several magazine articles incorporating the details), antiques, myths, and orchids. The best part was that the people who welcomed us as if we were long-lost members of their family.
But it wasn't all rosey. By the third day, I spasmed in coughs so often that I'd gone through two bottles of cough medicine and had started turning to whiskey and Grand Marniere to ease my aching chest.
When we flew to the big island, I wanted nothing more than to lie on the beach and soak in the sun, hoping that the clear and warm weather would dry up the muck taking over my lungs.
Fred lived on the west coast of the Big Island. His rented house perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking a black volcanic beach, and that black volcanic rock stopped flowing about a mile away from his house. At night, I could see the red rim of the volcano from Fred's bathroom. Gorgeous, but a bit discerning. The black rock a mile away from his house still smoked -- and inched forward a little more every day. The island actually adds mass each year rather than decreasing, like most do. The reason? The volcanic lava trickles down the side of the island into the ocean and turns solid. As a result, the beach disappears almost immediately when a swimmer enters the ocean. The sandy floor drops away and one is immediately swept into waters that feel bottomless.
The other interesting thing about the beach is that it's a nude beach. And, no, I didn't strip to my birthday suit and have a party. I watched other people, though, and to this day, I don't get why you would want to be nude and sit on the sand.
Anyway, the back story . . .
I spent part of every day on those beaches, trying not to speak because that made the cough worse. I let the guys talk to each other and either I listened or I read one of the books I'd brought. Each day I swam in the navy blue waves that slammed against the pilings that stretched like a crescent moon into the wild sea.
I got tossed by the island waves one afternoon, tumbled over and over under the water until I didn't know which way was up. I seriously thought I'd bought the farm, but then I was out and sputtering and much further from the beach than I wanted to be. I dragged myself back to the beach chairs, amazed at how full of tiny black rocks my bathing suit was (and I'd be removing them for at least two days afterward).
The near-drowning incident twisted my back so badly I couldn't move the next day. When my (then) husband Bobby and Fred went out into the waves, I stayed on the beach and watched as they swam with a pod of spinner dolphins that surrounded them like a churning mass of adolescents. I watched the spinners jumping and chasing each other further away, and as I enjoyed their antics, one of the whales breached over and over.
For the last week, I'd been fascinated by the dozens of whales we could see no matter where we stood on the ocean road that encircled the Big Island like a pearl necklace. Each whale had distinctive flukes, each unique and individual like fingerprints, so I knew if I was watching one I'd seen the day before. And when they breached, the sound sometimes echoed into the cove, depending on the distance and the wind. Often the sound snapped like thunder on a late August day.
I knew the whale I was watching at that moment was the same one who'd breached once or twice the day before, but now she'd breached ten or twelve times. Surely that wasn't normal.
I lost sight of Bobby and Fred as I watched the whale and then, as if she'd become a spirit, she was gone.
For long moments, I scanned the ocean, but she was gone, so I returned to watching the guys and the dolphins.
Then a huge black shadow came to the top of the water between where I sat on the beach and where Bobby and Fred swam with the dolphins.
A tiny pointed snout poked through the ocean's surface, then the body followed. A calf. And the mother who'd been breaching pushed up behind it, urging it to stretch for its first breath of air.
The moment froze.
In less than a moment, the new mom and her calf swam away, joining the rest of the pod off the coast of the island, but for that frozen moment, I was given the incredible gift of being the first human being to see that calf -- and perhaps I was the first human she saw, as well.
I sat on that beach and the beginnings of The Silver Dolphin formed in my head. I wanted to use the incredible islands as a backdrop for a story about protecting not only dolphins but also something just as precious and endangered: a good marriage.
Hopefully, I did a good job :-)
Peace,
D
The Silver Dolphin
October 3, 2016
THREE current GIVEAWAYS
I have a box of books ready to go out to current Goodreads Giveaway winners -- but the next three books that are currently open for entries are The Writer's Hand Journals Series: Setting/Place, Foxglove, and The Writer's Hand Journals Series: Meditations.
I'm in the process of writing another Writer's Hand Journal (this one focuses on Fictional Families), and I'm going to put another Giveaway up for the final novel: The Silver Dolphin.
Looks like my Giveaways won't be done until December -- then . . . who knows?
Best of luck!
Peace,
Dawn
I'm in the process of writing another Writer's Hand Journal (this one focuses on Fictional Families), and I'm going to put another Giveaway up for the final novel: The Silver Dolphin.
Looks like my Giveaways won't be done until December -- then . . . who knows?
Best of luck!
Peace,
Dawn
September 29, 2016
My first YouTube REVIEW!
I'm so excited. This is almost as exciting as the first time I was published, because it's my very first ever YouTube review of one of my books! And what makes it even more exciting is that it's a great review!
I didn't realize when the Goodreads Giveaway for the book (Listening to the Sun) ended that one of the winners was a regular book reviewer with her own YouTube channel. What a gift it was to find her review today when I was looking for something else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS_vT...
I love that in this busy world, people are finding ways to connect with others by using a technology which makes our world more intimate with each passing day. But what's best is that we haven't lost books. We're just finding different ways of sharing our recommendations with the millions of others who also love to read!
Dancin' dancin' dancin :-)))))
peace
Dawn
I didn't realize when the Goodreads Giveaway for the book (Listening to the Sun) ended that one of the winners was a regular book reviewer with her own YouTube channel. What a gift it was to find her review today when I was looking for something else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS_vT...
I love that in this busy world, people are finding ways to connect with others by using a technology which makes our world more intimate with each passing day. But what's best is that we haven't lost books. We're just finding different ways of sharing our recommendations with the millions of others who also love to read!
Dancin' dancin' dancin :-)))))
peace
Dawn
September 28, 2016
Weymouth Writer's Retreat
On a personal note, this past month has been an incredibly difficult one for me and my family. My ex-husband (of 23 years) and friend (for 40) passed away, and this death has been one of the most difficult I've had to face -- on many different levels. As a result of this tragedy, I didn't have the time I usually do to keep up with my writing . . . but last week, I caught up while at Weymouth Arts and Humanities Center in Southern Pines.
What a gift.
The house is a gorgeous ten thousand plus square foot mansion surrounded by gardens and hundreds of acres of state park. The mansion is rumored to be haunted, a fact I didn't know until AFTER I slept in the room that's supposed to be the "worst." I had no problem in the room (in fact, I wrote extremely well -- and a LOT -- while there), but the hallway was, well, let's say that spooky is an appropriate word.
It rained every day while I was there, but it was perfectly fine, since I was there to write. After the third day, I must admit I was beginning to feel like I'd been transported to a rainforest in the Northwest corner of this continent.
I went there with the manuscript for my new novel, THE MOURNING PARADE, and notes from my editor. I came home with all the notes addressed, new segments written, and sections on the elephant rewritten.
To say that makes me feel successful is an understatement. I'm still grieving and will be for quite a while, but I'm sure Bobby would be nodding and saying, "Yup, Dawn does dump all her emotions on the page. Doesn't surprise me."
Being a writer often isn't easy.
Peace,
D
What a gift.
The house is a gorgeous ten thousand plus square foot mansion surrounded by gardens and hundreds of acres of state park. The mansion is rumored to be haunted, a fact I didn't know until AFTER I slept in the room that's supposed to be the "worst." I had no problem in the room (in fact, I wrote extremely well -- and a LOT -- while there), but the hallway was, well, let's say that spooky is an appropriate word.
It rained every day while I was there, but it was perfectly fine, since I was there to write. After the third day, I must admit I was beginning to feel like I'd been transported to a rainforest in the Northwest corner of this continent.
I went there with the manuscript for my new novel, THE MOURNING PARADE, and notes from my editor. I came home with all the notes addressed, new segments written, and sections on the elephant rewritten.
To say that makes me feel successful is an understatement. I'm still grieving and will be for quite a while, but I'm sure Bobby would be nodding and saying, "Yup, Dawn does dump all her emotions on the page. Doesn't surprise me."
Being a writer often isn't easy.
Peace,
D
September 15, 2016
GIVEAWAYS!
FINALLY, I have all of my backlist up on Amazon and Goodreads, so now I'm paying attention to Giveaways.
Currently active Giveaways include one for FOXGLOVE, the international romantic suspense about two best friends who globe-trot the world for exciting stories and end up falling into one that changes their lives AND The Writer's Hand Journal: Characterization, a journal filled with 100 quotes from the best novels that writers/readers can emulate or simply read for pleasure (2 blank pages with each quote allow you to write a response or create a character of your own!)
Good luck in the Giveaways! I'd love to hear your opinion about all of my books, so please review them :-)
Foxglove
The Writer's Hand Journal: Characterization
Currently active Giveaways include one for FOXGLOVE, the international romantic suspense about two best friends who globe-trot the world for exciting stories and end up falling into one that changes their lives AND The Writer's Hand Journal: Characterization, a journal filled with 100 quotes from the best novels that writers/readers can emulate or simply read for pleasure (2 blank pages with each quote allow you to write a response or create a character of your own!)
Good luck in the Giveaways! I'd love to hear your opinion about all of my books, so please review them :-)
Foxglove
The Writer's Hand Journal: Characterization
September 12, 2016
YA Giveaway -- AFTER ALWAYS
I gave you the backstory about After Always in a previous post, so you know the story centers around Ralph Waldo's predicament of choosing to believe a parent's guilt or fighting to prove his innocence. RW (Ralph Waldo) is a feisty, confused teen with a family basically built on oddities. Each of the kids is named after one of his parents' literary heroes (RW is short for Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of his sisters is Virginia Woolf (Ginny), another is Katharine Mansfield (Katie), and his brother is Robert Frost. As the oldest, RW feels responsible for his siblings, though they irritate him. He finds himself worried for them and forced into a steep learning curve in the lessons of being an adult.
After Always
There are 6 copies of the book available on my Goodreads Giveaway. I do hope you enter -- and if you win, I'd love some of your feedback!
Hope you're reading something fascinating -- if you are, let me know what it is!
Peace
September 9, 2016
FREE Kindle version of ALL THAT GLITTERS
For those of who who are reading my blog, you're getting a very special gift :-) For FIVE days only, my highly-reviewed novel ALL THAT GLITTERS will be FREE in the Kindle version on Amazon. Sept 10-14 ONLY!
I promise that those of you who love women's fiction, a strong lead female, international locations, and a suspenseful, adventurous plot will fall in love with Diana Colucci and her friends and family.
Let me know what you think -- and ENJOY!
Peace
Dawn
https://www.amazon.com/That-Glitters-...
I promise that those of you who love women's fiction, a strong lead female, international locations, and a suspenseful, adventurous plot will fall in love with Diana Colucci and her friends and family.
Let me know what you think -- and ENJOY!
Peace
Dawn
https://www.amazon.com/That-Glitters-...
