Guest Blog by A.M. Dellamonica - Where Inspiration Flows

Please welcome A.M. Dellamonica to The Qwillery. Blue Magic (Blue Magic 2) was published on April 10, 2012 by Tor.  I was curious about the genesis of 'vitagua' in the novels. Here's what A.M. Dellamonica has to say about the inspiration for 'vitagua.'

Where Inspiration Flows

The vitagua in my books Indigo Springs and Blue Magic is a fluid that is deep blue in color, faintly luminescent, and it has the viscosity of fresh blood. I have always imagined that light shines on it with the same intensity that it does when it hits a fresh wound, and in fact one of the other names for this liquid magic is 'spirit blood.' There's a sense in which the earth starts bleeding vitagua in these two books: it seeps from an inner realm into the real world.

I've tried to recall precisely what inspired this specific material back in the early 2000's, when I first started working on Indigo Springs. I can remember being very taken with the idea of magic flowing into the world through a crack in the ground. I had a few false starts on the book, and in at least one the characters found it in a break in the pavement in a back alley. And before that attempt was a novella (one I never published) where the world went so magically wrong that cities and towns broke free of their infrastructures. They ended up roaming around North America like buffalo, carrying their residents with them.

But the specifics of why a fluid, why liquid magic--some of that is simply lost to me. It was such a strong image, but it was over a decade ago. I remember wanting a tie to a bloodlike substance, wanting red blood, blue magic, and clear water as visual images within the story.

When I dig for more, I flash on a Frank Herbert introduction to Dune, wherein he wrote about wanting to write about water shortages and oil shortages and how spice arose from that. There's a sense in which both Dune and my Books of Chantment are about poor resource management, so perhaps there's a tie there, an influence.

What is probably most true is that I had the image I wanted--the liquid magic, long lost, flowing back into the real world--and then I had to find a way to make it work.

And that came when I wrote a story called "Nevada," about two sisters who could make raw magic into mystical objects called chantments.

When I made that connection--when I realized that vitagua, which can't be handled directly, could be source of chantments--then Astrid Lethewood, her family history and her power struggle with Sahara all came into focus. That was when I was able to start writing the books that became Indigo Springs and Blue Magic.


About the Books

Blue Magic

Blue Magic 2
Tor, April 10, 2012
Trade Paperback and eBook, 384 pages

This powerful sequel to the A.M. Dellamonica's Sunburst Award–winning contemporary fantasy Indigo Springs starts in the small town in Oregon where Astrid Lethewood discovered an underground river of blue liquid—Vitagua—that is pure magic. Everything it touches is changed. The secret is out—and the world will never be the same. Astrid’s best friend, Sahara, has been corrupted by the blue magic, and now leads a cult that seeks to rule the world. Astrid, on the other hand, tries to heal the world.

Conflicting ambitions, star-crossed lovers, and those who fear and hate magic combine in a terrible conflagration, pitting friend against friend, magic against magic, and the power of nations against a small band of zealots, with the fate of the world at stake.

Blue Magic is a powerful story of private lives changed by earthshaking events that will ensnare readers in its poignant tale of a world touched by magic and plagued by its consequences.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound

Indigo Springs

Blue Magic 1
Tor, November 2010
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 352 pages
Trade Paperback (October 2009)

Indigo Springs is a sleepy town where things seem pretty normal . . . until Astrid’s father dies and she moves into his house. She discovers that for many years her father had been accessing the magic that flowed, literally, in a blue stream beneath the earth, leaking into his house. When she starts to use the liquid "vitagua" to enchant everyday items, the results seem innocent enough: a “’chanted” watch becomes a charm that means you're always in the right place at the right time; a “’chanted” pendant enables the wearer to convince anyone of anything . . .

But as events in Indigo Springs unfold and the true potential of vitagua is revealed, Astrid and her friends unwittingly embark on a journey fraught with power, change, and a future too devastating to contemplate. Friends become enemies and enemies become friends as Astrid discovers secrets from her shrouded childhood that will lead her to a destiny stranger than she could have imagined . . .

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound

About A.M. Dellamonica

A.M. DELLAMONICA is the author of Indigo Springs, which won the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Her short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, Sci-Fiction and Strange Horizons, and in numerous anthologies; her 2005 alternate-history Joan of Arc story, “A Key to the Illuminated Heretic,” was short-listed for the Sideways Award and the Nebula Award. Dellamonica lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Links:

Official Site: http://alyxdellamonica.com

Social Networking

LJ: http://planetalyx.livejournal.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AlyxDellamonica
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/AlyxDellamonica
G+: https://plus.google.com/106086459950640246872/posts

Photography

Tumbler (mostly Instagram Photos): http://alyxdellamonica.tumblr.com/
Gramfeed: http://www.gramfeed.com/alyxdellamonica
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14036428@N00/

Teaching

The UCLA Extension Writers' Program: https://www.uclaextension.edu/

Tor Stuff

All A.M.'s TOR articles: http://www.tor.com/Alyx%20Dellamonica#filter
TOR Stories: "The Cage" - http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/07/the-cage
"Among the Silvering Herd" - http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/02/among-the-silvering-herd
"Wild Things" (coming)
First chapter of Indigo Springs - http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/11/indigo-springs
First Chapter of Blue Magic - http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/03/blue-magic-excerpt




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