Author Archives: Alyx Dellamonica

About Alyx Dellamonica

Alyx Dellamonica lives in Toronto, Ontario, with their wife, author Kelly Robson. They write fiction, poetry, and sometimes plays, both as A.M. Dellamonica and L.X. Beckett. A long-time creative writing teacher and coach, they now work at the UofT writing science articles and other content for the Department of Chemistry. They identify as queer, nonbinary, autistic, Nerdfighter, and BTS Army.

Mediawitterings

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K and I watched The Woman in Black on Friday night–it was creepy, decently written and just a bit tame, I thought. The effect of some of the visuals would have been more intense in a theater. Daniel Radcliffe was quite good as an all-grown-up mopey human, and it was nice to see Ciaran Hinds too, the more so because I am loving him in the mini-series Political Animals. (He’s Bill Clinton, basically, complete with southern U.S. accent. It’s riveting.)

Has anyone seen the new Bourne film? Don’t spoil me, but I’d love to know if you thought it was any good.

In unrelated news, I really want to go back to Sicily today, and maybe wander the markets in Palermo.
All Imported-571

I #amreading Sharp Objects

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Sharp Objects is a creepy, gruesome little thriller about a woman who goes home to the small town she left behind, and to the mother, stepfather and sister she is probably better off not seeing. She goes because she is a reporter, and her editor sends her to cover what might be a serial killer working her old hometown.

The main character of this novel is profoundly damaged. Camille is a cutter, which is what the title refers to. She has been so damaged by her childhood that she spent years cutting words into her flesh, and this gives the author access to a really neat little character device. Whenever she experiences some little thread of emotion, she has a sense of a relevant word more or less vibrating on her skin. It works incredibly well.

I have the bulk of the plot guessed out pretty early on, as is common with me and mysteries, but this is one of those wonderful novels where the telling is far more important than the outcome. Sharp Objects takes a turn into the truly macabre and I say that as someone, as you know, who reads a lot of dark stuff.

It’s not fun, exactly but it is a thrilling, scary and thought-provoking read.

In completely other news, I am at SF Mindmeld, talking about POV this week. And I’m not alone. Among others, sparkly birthday woman and brilliant author Jessica Reisman shares her thoughts.

The latest #Buffyrewatch on @tordotcom is Earshot…

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Yes, ,u blogging has fallen off again. There are about three things going on in my personal life that are pretty much all-consuming–which means sometimes I’m running 300% as fast as I should and the rest I’m flatline and drooling in front of Olympic Show Jumping. I hope to tell you about some of them soon. (I am at 67,000 words on the current novel, which is nice.)

In the meantime, though, life in Sunnydale marches grimly towards Graduation:

I can heeear you!

Enjoy!

All my TOR stuff are belong in the iStore

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So not into the Kindle thing? Opposed to Amazon for any reason at all? But kinda into e-books? This may be the post for you.

My publisher, TOR, has currently got four works of mine out as e-books, and recently they’ve made it to the Apple ecosystem. This means iPhone and iPad users can load up my two novels, Indigo Springs and Blue Magic. The two novelettes available in this format, The Cage and Among the Silvering Herd.

Like all of TOR’s stuff now, these files are DRM-free, which logically should mean that you can buy them from iTunes and read them on other devices. I haven’t attempted to do this yet, but if there are wrinkles in the process I’ll let you know.

(All this stuff is of course findable if you go to the link with my name on it: A.M. Dellamonica.)

Like anyone in practically any kind of business at all these days, an unknowable portion of my fate is tied to good user reviews and ratings. As far as I can tell, you do not have to have purchased any of the above stories from the iStore to rate it. (This isn’t true of apps–you have to own one to post about it.) So… if you have read and liked one of them, and have a minute to hit the iStore and say so, I’ll be in your debt.

Last official @ClarionWest #Writeathon Word Count

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I admit I was hoping to break 60K by the end of today, but to do that I’d have to be self-abusive and willing to write what–even by my lax first-draft standards–would be unsalvagable drivel. Pages upon pages of “And then McReporterpants did the thingie with the watchamacallit. Theodolite? Look this up later.”

So – today, words that are better than the above:

July 27 2,308 for a grand total of 58,378 words. Here’s what they looked like before I typed them:

Extremely rough draft, with chamomile tea.

(Sponsor me here! Win Naming Rights to an Island on Stormwrack!)

I had a look at the outline and I’m not as far from the end of the plot as I would have guessed. Maybe another 15,000 words until the thing’s Frankensteined together? I’ve never been good at making these kind of guesstimates.

What I did today to celebrate the end of the Write-A-Thon was go to the Urban Tea Merchant and spend two and a half hours imbibing Royal Darjeerling tea, little sandwiches and luxurious baked goodies while scribbling the above words. It was a very enjoyable wrap-up to the whole Write-A-Thon ritual; I commend it to you all.

I plan to keep up the current pace, of course, until I finish the draft. And then go back and rewrite, and rewrite some more, and then some more.