Category Archives: My Short Stories

Posts about my published short fiction and any works underway.

Fine sifting and fall plans

  By Alyx Dellamonica | September 28, 2011 - 9:52 am | Appearances, Books, My Novels, My Short Stories, Process
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I am reading through the Blue Magic page proofs this week (196 days until it’s released!) which means I am going through printed pages that are laid out as the book will be, looking for any small errors. I’ve already gone through the copy-edited manuscript, where all the big errors and inconsistencies have been found and vanquished.

After that, my current plan is to have a hard look at a short story that’s all but done. It’s provisionally titled “Losing Heart among the Tall.” As titles go, I’m not convinced that’s perfect. This polish is half about actually finishing the story, and partly to reacquaint myself with the details of the setting, a place called Stormwrack, which also appears in a number of other things I’ve been working on this year. This includes a story called “Among the Silvering Herd” that I’ve sold to Tor.com. (I’ll let you know when it’s gonna be up, as soon as I know myself!)

This weekend, I’ll be hopping off to VCon to rub elbows with fabulous people like the latest denizen of the Twitterverse, DD Barant, Mary Choo, and Julie McGalliardon. On Saturday evening, at our 9:00 p.m. group reading, I’ll read from my story “Wild Things,” which takes place in the Indigo Springs universe, between the events of the two novels.

Once “Losing Heart among the Tall”‘s events and details are fresh in my mind, I’ll dig into the other stuff set in Stormwrack, for all of October.

Finally, if that goes well and I can wrap up by Halloween, I’m thinking of joining a number of my Nanowrimo buddies-in-crime in November by setting myself a goal of 50,000 words of new short fiction. Since I mostly write novelettes in the 7500-8500 word range, that’d make for six stories. I thought another squid story about Ruthless, perhaps, to go with “The Town on Blighted Sea,” another Stormwrack story for sure, and I have a few other ideas. But I don’t as yet have six ideas, and I thought I might throw the floor open for prompts, requests, challenges, a contest… somesuch thing.

Have any of you done this, either opened the floor to challenges in this way or contributed to a call for prompts? How did it work? Was there a prize? Were you happy with the result?

Looking for miracles in the app store

  By Alyx Dellamonica | July 1, 2011 - 9:32 am | My Short Stories, Process, True Stories, Uncategorized, Works in Progress
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Happy Canada Day, fellow northerners!

I am a firm believer in stepping away from the Internet when trying to write. I think better when I don’t face temptation in the form of a quick check of the Twitter feeds, status pages, Google reader, etcetera blah blah. One part of Cafe Calabria’s allure, for me, is that it hasn’t really got wireless.

Calabria is not an entirely distraction-free environment, but its diversions feel more human and, somehow, worthwhile. I don’t begrudge the occasional moment spent trying to comprehend the italian lyrics of Frank Senior’s eclectic musical choices, for example, or eavesdropping on the other early-morning regulars. As I write this, the fellows I think of as “Chatty Guy,” “Brother of Chatty Guy” and “Their Friend” are chewing over the ethics of hunting. They’re good with it in cases of self-defense, I’ll have you know and mostly all right with the idea of hunting for food. (“There’s something so right about killing something and eating it,” one of them opines.)

The conversation has bogged down, though, over the issue of sport fishing and catch-and-release. It is a typical morning jaw over java, and the longer the conversation goes on, the less sense it makes. Friend Of seems to be saying that you might as well eat fish because you don’t know they wouldn’t attack you if they could.

(Obviously that isn’t what he is actually saying, but it sounds funny as hell. Usually they talk about Celine Dion or Arnold’s Divorce or the Canucks. I find this topic preferable.)

Calabria is across the street from a Starbucks with fairly robust Wi-Fi, which has been tricky as I adapt to writing on my newest toy, an iPad. I can just barely pick up a feed if there are no big trucks parked on the corner. And the pad will sync if I’m online, which is a nice little hedge against data loss. So every now and then I get sucked into checking: is there Wifi after all? From there, it’s a short hop to The Forbidden: checking my Inbox.

In other words, I have not perfected my new regime.

I did write 187 words on Thursday–revising again, and adding as little as possible–which brings me to 35% of my Write-A-Thon goal of 20K words. And not having the 5 pound laptop on my back wherever I go is a very nice lifestyle change. Having got the weight of the laptop off my shoulders, the next goal is to give my hands a break as much as possible, so I’m working to make more effort to dictate things like e-mails and blog posts. I like the iPad version of Dragon, especially the part whereby I don’t need a tangly-corded external microphone to use it.

Of course, though I am trying to make the gadget serve my writing and health needs, I really spent the three months saving for the thing because I wanted a damn TOY. I spend a lot of time in the App Store, looking for the two dollar piece of software that will change my life forever. Have you found it? I am a fan of Simplenote and Dropbox, but I was already using them on the iPod. And though I love Flipboard, and am having fun with Sketchclub, I have yet to find anything, you know, miraculous.

Cafe Calabria

Thoughts falling like raindrops, in no especial order…

  By Alyx Dellamonica | May 7, 2011 - 10:47 am | Books, My Novels, My Short Stories, Mysteries, Photography, Process, Uncategorized
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It’s pouring, which does not bode well for a Mother’s Day outing with Barb. We may be jostling for elbow room at a brunch place tomorrow if the rain doesn’t let up.

In the meantime, I have finished Josh Lanyon’s The Dark Farewell, which–when I take over the universe and am boss of you all–shall be retitled: “Ha Ha Ha, Bored Now! The End, Suckers!” until such time as Lanyon can be made to sit down and finish the thing properly. Or at all. Just as things were starting to get messy he solved the crime, wiped out the Romantic Obstacle, and finis! I am moving on to Wayne Arthurson, and Fall from Grace, in what might be described as a Profound Reader Snit.

(Which state I do expect Wayne to remedy. I already love how he writes about the Alberta landscape.)

Words, words, words: 1748 words since last time on the current novel.

I am working on a bunch of related shorts, though, and have just had a grand realization about the next entry in that batch. So once I fix up the chapters I drafted this week, I may defect from the novel to the shorties, which I’m calling The Gales, for 8500 words or so. Meanwhile, here’s a snippet from that book; I Tweeted it earlier this week:

At his feet, the gutted remains of the monster were soaking into Sophie’s second-best jeans.

And a sea star. Well, two:
Sea Star

Story Intro: “The Cage”

  By Alyx Dellamonica | March 15, 2011 - 8:02 am | Fiction Online, My Short Stories, Process, Short Story Intros, Uncategorized
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I have been trying to finish up a few non-fiction projects before diving into the next one(s) and the story intros are one of the things have been waiting. I set out to write a little something about those stories of mine that are available online in some format, and now I’ve pretty much finished all of them except for my baby werewolf story, “The Cage.” Saving it for last seemed reasonable, since it’s the piece that appeared most recently. It has only been a year since I wrote it, so it’s far less of a blast from the past than something like “A Key to the Illuminated Heretic.”

But I realized last week that when “The Cage,” made the LOCUS recommended reading list, it also went on what they call the drop-down list for the LOCUS reader’s poll. This probably should have been a no-brainer, since I did once write a fair number of reviews for LOCUS and contribute to that list, but I didn’t make the connection until I bought my tickets for the LOCUS shindig in Seattle in June. There are so many lovely things by people I adore on the drop-down list: M.K. Hobson‘s The Native Star is on there, and so is Chill, by Elizabeth Bear and stories like Cat Rambo’s “Clockwork Fairies.”

But this is a wide-open to all readers kind of poll, and you don’t have to restrict yourself to the drop down list. You can write in books and stories, like–for example–Jessica Wynne Reisman‘s “The Vostrasovitch Clockwork Animal and Traveling Forest Show at the End of the World,” or … hey, tell me about all the great fiction you published last year, folks! You’ll be reminding me about stuff I loved, or at the very least stuff I meant to read and temporarily lost in the pile.

Anyway. “The Cage” began with an anthology invite: my agent knew someone who was doing a book of urban fantasy stories with a specific theme–she’d told ‘em I was just the thing, and I got the guidelines not long after that. I started researching March 2, 2010 and had a polished draft in hand by April 5th. But not fast enough: the antho filled. Between one thing and another and with a rewrite in between, it ended up zipping off to Tor.com on June 8th, where it got to be the final story in their urban fantasy spotlight.

As my intros for “What Song the Sirens Sang” and “Faces of Gemini” probably show, I love story assignments that come with a bit of a restriction in them. They push me out of the box, moving me into areas I wouldn’t necessarily have gone on my own. Some of my strongest shorts are the ones I wrote for Mojo: Conjure Stories, Alternate Generals III (v. 3), and The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm.

In this case, I merged the less familiar element–home renovation–with my own backyard. I made extensive use of my neighborhood and certain communities within Vancouver in writing “The Cage.” The Britannia Community Center branch of Vancouver Public Library, where the story begins, is just a few blocks from my home in little Italy. It is where I pick up my VPL holds and where I got my blue belt in aikido.

The physical terrain is quite faithfully rendered, in other words.

The community is stickier: people always are. But the story draws on the best of my experiences as an activist in the local feminist and queer communities. Catching us on a fictional best day maybe presents a bit of a rose colored view, but it’s not as though that version of the community doesn’t exist. It does–just not all the time. I believe that humans, in singles and in groups, oscillate in and out of states of perfection. That the statement “Nobody’s perfect” should be amended to “Nobody’s always perfect.”

In “The Cage,” Jude’s alternate family discovers or creates one of those perfect moments–one of those days when everyone’s pitching in and pulling together, when nobody’s too burned out or sick or pissed off or scraping after funds or endlessly chewing after consensus on an irrelevant frippery, at a meeting that’s gone on far too long. It’s Team Good Guys FTW, and Chase, Paige and Jude are the ones who benefit.

All that, and it even has romance!

Story intro: Origin of Species

  By Alyx Dellamonica | February 16, 2011 - 6:52 am | My Short Stories, Process, Short Story Intros, True Stories, Uncategorized
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I wrote “Origin of Species” at almost exactly the same time as I did “Faces of Gemini” (whose intro is here) and the process was very similar: an anthology invitation from editor Jeanne Cavelos became an outline in point form, which in turn became an outline of detailed sentences. These became a bony first draft in need of fleshing. The two stories feel like siblings of a sort, having come together in this fashion.

I cannot remember how I hit upon the idea of taking Annie Darwin’s ghost and putting her in a Van Helsing story. I knew I didn’t want to set the story in the time of Dracula, didn’t want monster-stalking by gaslight: I figured that the anthology would have plenty of those, written well by people who actually know their Victorian history.

I do know I was deeply pleased with the idea as soon as I conceived it; I vaguely remember that I’d just read Annie’s Box: Darwin, His Daughter, and Human Evolution and had it on my mind, and saw that Annie could be put to good use there.

It felt right, in other words, which is no doubt another reason why the story came together so fast.

New delivery systems for my stuff…

  By Alyx Dellamonica | February 4, 2011 - 6:55 am | Announcements, Fiction Online, My Novels, My Short Stories, Uncategorized, Welcome
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Folks have told me that my East Van lesbian werewolf romance, “The Cage,” made the Locus Recommended Reading list for 2010–I haven’t confirmed this with my eyeballs, but I hear that M.K. Hobson and Cat Rambo are on it too. Anyway, it was nice to hear and I want to cyber-hug all my friends and acquaintances who also made the list. (And, really, all my other friends and acquaintances too.)

In other news, Indigo Springs and “The Cage” are both available in an electronic bookstore called Diesel. I’m not sure how this works, formatwise, but they can be had. And they are both in the Sony Ebookstore now, too. iTunes is supposed to have them, but continues to lag behind.

It’s boggling, really, how many things have just become ours for the clicking.

Edited to add: The list is up again, here.

The Cage on Kindle, courtesy @tordotcom

  By Alyx Dellamonica | January 21, 2011 - 9:14 am | Announcements, My Short Stories
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Hey, Kindlers, look what’s just hit the virtual bookshelves… or, rather, what will hit the bookshelves on February 1st! As far as I can tell, the story is not yet in the iTunes store, but it is supposed to be coming.

Writing this story, and having it get such a positive reception from so many readers, was one of the real treats of 2010 for me. If you’ve read “The Cage”, or you end up reading it, I hope it was good for you too.

2011 Fiction Plan

  By Alyx Dellamonica | January 3, 2011 - 7:00 am | My Novels, My Short Stories, Uncategorized
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My 2011 fiction writing plan is vague in the same way last year’s was: it’s composed of a lot of “drop everything,” as in:

If X hits my desk, drop everything and do it. If Y comes in, ditto.

In other words, I still have a lot of stuff in progress and lines in the water.

In 2011 the priority will be on turning around completed works as they are given to me. BLUE MAGIC is scheduled for 2011, for example, so it’s certain to hit my desk three to four times before November. Meanwhile, I have three other big projects that might go forward soon, or later, or possibly not. In theory, three or even four drop-everything projects could land on me at once. How I will deal with that, if it happens, will be interesting.

What’s more likely (she said optimistically) is that the priority stuff will stutter in in dribs and drabs over the next two to three years, and I will have some downtime for working on other things. The goals for this hypothetical allotment of time are:

1. Finish either of the two novels drafted in 2010.
2. If 2010′s proposal is unsuccessful, write a 2011 Canada Council proposal and thirty sample pages of another new novel.
3. Finish the outstanding short stories from 2010.
4. Draft short fiction rather than novels in 2011 until some of the above projects shake out.

The upshot, if I’m not buried in drop-everything projects? Six stories drafted, three finished and to market, and a novel finished.

Last line blues

  By Alyx Dellamonica | December 3, 2010 - 10:00 am | My Short Stories, Process, Works in Progress
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I will often get to the very last sentence of a nonfiction piece and find myself stymied. It is as though I can hear the tone of the thing, the notes I want to hit, but am waiting on lyrics.

When this happens, it usually plays out like this: I’ll polish up the article. Then I will spend ten or twenty minutes rearranging the few sentences before the yet-to-be-written ending. This can be followed by a denial phase. Maybe now that I have prettied that up, I can just stop. Damn! No! What if I rearrange thusly?

Eventually I buckle down and just grind out an approximation of whatever it is I’m trying to say, and then buff that from nonsense into coherence. Sometimes I give myself an extra public pants kick by tweetin’ about how I got those last line blues again. This triggers many helpful* suggestions on Facebook (“Write THE END”). Other times I whine via email to Snuffy, and then try to have something before she gets back to me.

This syndrome doesn’t manifest quite the same way with fiction. If I am writing a story, I will often end a session mere paragraphs from the end. Somehow, that feels okay, like waiting for a first layer of paint to dry. There are even times when the end comes early, and just waits for me to ravel together the beginning-middle-crisis.

The current story, tentatively titled “Among the Silvering Herd” has been weirdly recalcitrant, though, my writerbrain refusing to choke up a last line… until today. I am so happy that I finally have it. I am not such a one as enjoys thrashing with the same 250 words for two frickin’ weeks.

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*By which I mean “helpful.” As in, with air quotes.