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.

Stellar’s Jay, Rain Garden counts

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Thursday’s verbiage: 1,374 words. (I’m trying not to overshoot 900 a day by too much, but I had less than that on Tuesday-Wednesday.)
Friday’s: 1,116 words.

My other big accomplishment of the week seems to be getting Met in HD tickets, which went on sale Friday. Cineplex, for those of you who haven’t tried it, has the most Byzantine and thoroughly evil online box office I have ever encountered.

And here’s a birdie for you all.
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Word Counts and Weather

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I’ve typed in the pages from Tuesday’s THE RAIN GARDEN scribble session and got 780 words; Wednesday, meanwhile, got me to 1634. I hadn’t been sure how many words fit on the current notebook page, but it looks to be somewhere between 150-175. So six handwritten pages a day will get me my 900 words, it looks like.

I have a ripping busy work week ahead–my ten Novel II students have all turned in their finished fifty-page submissions. They’ve been very dedicated and I’d make them get up and applaud each other, if my classroom wasn’t virtual. Before I’d got to know this group, I couldn’t be sure how many of them I could expect to make it to this particular finish line. It is very gratifying to see how committed they are to becoming writers.

So–pile of grading, novel underway. Spinning hard and fast. Don’t be surprised if this space is a bit quiet this week. You know where to find me if you need me.

Spiderwebs

One book, two book, new book, blue book…

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First, an exciting contest announcement: Favorite Thing Ever is giving away a copy of Indigo Springs. Entering is easy: surf here, leave a comment, and you’ll be in the running to win. No skill testing questions are involved.

Speaking of skill-testing, I am embarking on a new novel this morning.

I had been thinking to write a couple more squid stories, to go with the three already published and the two that are about to hit the market. However, after a couple of weeks of thrashing around the Battle of Las Vegas, I’ve conclusively determined that my head’s not currently in the Proxy War. So, as an experiment, I switched over to detailed planning on THE RAIN GARDEN, my next mystery project. Things clicked immediately. Presto, plotto, kazam!–I have an outline.

My plan as of two weeks ago had been to blast through a very rough draft of this book in November, as a Nanowrimo thing. Barring fire, flood and the common cold, I find that two thousand words a day for thirty days (less a couple days off) is a pretty sustainable pace for me. But since I’m ready now I’m darnwell gonna start now, keeping the end-of-November finish date but moving at more of a 900-word daily target. That will leave time for days off, a visit to Alberta, and Orycon.

I like the sustained push-push-focus of Nanowrimo, but it does tend to leave me bug-eyed and gibbering well into December. And there’s no reason to hold off if I’m ready to write the book now.

So, hey! What are all of you working on this autumn?