Liz Argall

E and S called me last night and said “We’re bringing Totoro to Sakura-con on Friday, do you want to hang out?”

I said “YES! Of course, I would love to see you and see Totoro in the flesh.” Their Totoro is pretty amazing and some fabulous folks (who I’m not sure if they want to be named or not) spent about eight months building Totoro (and have been refining him since he had is debut at Dragoncon last year). I had yet to meet the excellent fuzzy chap in the flesh.

I was very excited.

I helped with Totoro security, had a grand time looking at all the gorgeous costumes AND??? I got to have a turn putting on the grey suit myself!!!!!!! I got to be an enormous Totoro puppet!!! I wiggled my ears, bounced, bowed, wandered the crowd, hugged people, waved (the most technically difficult of procedures) and got hugged many many times. It was the best and I was a little sad when it was time to stop.

The best part of being part of the Totoro posse (inside or outside of the suit) are the sudden gasps of delight as people turned corners and saw us. Truly, to be near Totoro is to be near joy ^_^.

(click any photo to embiggen)

 

What a great day, you can read “Shadow Play” online and give it rocket dragons!

If you’re a subscriber today is the day you can read “Soft” by Cat Rambo’s. We’re in Horrific Miscue together and it is pleasing to share Daily Science Fiction-ness with such a generous and savvy critique partner.

Shadow Play was inspired by witter banter with William Alexander over on twitter (his first book Goblin Secrets won a National Book Award and his latest book Ghoulish Song has just come out)… sometimes social media isn’t just procrastination ;-)

Mermaid’s Hook has been live over at Apex for over a week and I’m rather chuffed at how well it has been received. It’s also my first story to receive a short, sweet review over at Locus.

Reading the review and various conversations about diversity made me think about how my story came about. Sometimes people use history and “that’s how it was” to justify very bland realities that are unfair to our ancestors. That sort of talk erases how interesting folks were and are. Strangely enough “that’s how it is” talk sometimes accompanies “Oh noes! The Politically Correct Brigade are going to make everything boring and won’t let us be interesting.” Certainly engaging with diversity properly can be scary, but that is not the same as boring.

Reading history and thinking about reality helped me create Mermaids Hook. Drawing on my knowledge of perfectly ordinary history my story became more diverse and more interesting.

When I was writing Mermaids Hook I tried to burrow deep into the mermaid’s psyche. I tried to experience her world through her metaphors and conceptual system and follow her reality as closely as possible. I didn’t know who the sailor was to start with, but once they got to the surface she needed to observe him. For a brief moment I found myself falling into cliche, but then I paused and really thought about it. How often do princes fall into the ocean? Why is it always a prince? The one person you’d think people would take special effort to rescue? Maybe it’s an ordinary sailor… but who? What year is it? What ocean? What’s an ordinary sailor?

I didn’t have a clear fix so I paused and thought, when did the most people travel over the ocean in boats likely to lose people overboard? What is the most statistically likely place and time for this to happen?… statistics, population dynamics, probability, some might find it boring or lead to the same old story, but applying a bit of reality turned out to be something very interesting indeed. I hoped it would, but at the time I mostly just wanted somewhere to start brainstorming.

I thought about contemporary piracy and human trafficking. I thought about waves of immigration, the settlement of America, the settlement of Australia… and then I remembered in a flash (bless my high school history teacher) the horrifying death rates of slaves brought to America. I remembered how the sick or disobedient were tossed overboard. I remembered a haunting image, of how sometimes all the slaves were thrown overboard chained together en masse  – to prevent a ship from sinking during a storm or to avoid facing slavery charges (an unfortunate side effect of the British outlawing slavery). I thought, why haven’t there been more mermaid stories with this focus when so many people drowned?

I decided my sailor was not a sailor, but a man abducted from his home and went overboard while fighting back. Through strange chance, the will to live, and a mermaid, he is the only African on the ship to survive. I still feel sad when I think about the falling people wrapped in chains. Our mermaid knows people are drowning but does not understand it, the man has no idea that all the people he traveled with get executed to give the ship extra buoyancy.

I’m glad I paused, by taking the time to think about who a person was, not going on the presumptions, assumptions and blinkers that limit a story. By applying a little bit of real history (rather than historical/archetypal generalizations) the story got to be almost as interesting and diverse as reality. The world is an amazing place.

Hello lovelies. Apologies for being so slow. I got caught up drawing comics again (Things Without Arms and Without Legs), noodling around with words and roller skating. Here are more photos of Rainforest Writers Village folks with Bosun Ducky, I wanted to capture everyone, but I was not strategic enough. Thanks to Kelly Lagor for lending me her phone to take the pics with (my own had run out of go juice).

I found out today that “Shadow Play” will be available for subscribers of Daily Science Fiction on March 21. Everyone else will have to wait a week to read it online, but given subscription is free why wait?

March is turning out to be a rather snazzy month!

I had the pleasure of attending Rainforest Writers Village for the first time this year. We worked hard, played hard and a staggering number of words were created between us. I (surprise surprise) talked about Roller Derby a bit and discovered (unsurprisingly) that quite a few writers give pretty good hip checks (yes I may have run around and bumped people a teeny tiny bit!).

I wrote a little under 10,000 words, which is less than I had hoped, but a satisfying amount in 4 days (especially as I lean towards slow writing). The workshops, organized and spontaneous were excellent and Christie Yant facilitated a writing exercise every night that should make the world of fiction a more interesting place.

It was wonderful to spend time with so many amazing people, old friends and new. It makes me excited about the world of fiction. It makes me very grateful to Patrick for organizing such an event every year and I see why it normally sells out in seconds.

I got two bits of exciting news back to back on the first day, the day of most silent virtue and nearly exploded with unspoken squeee. Everyone was working so hard, I didn’t want to interrupt them, so I went outside and ran around and around until I could calm down!

Achievements beyond word count include writing a complete short story, exploring a middle grade book I might write (discovering its flaws and how the outline needs a radical restructure). Exploratory word chunks. Revising and resubmitting a short story.

I ran out of battery for my camera phone, so I borrowed other phones to go on a Bosun Ducky picture taking extravaganza… which is code for MORE PHOTOS TO COME!!!

Mermaid’s Hook can now be read over at Apex magazine. I sold this story around the time Leonard died and wrote the story just after Clarion, so the proceeds will go towards the Leonard Pung Memorial Scholarship.

It’s an honor to be part of this issue. It’s full of writers I admire AND non-fiction that mentions cosplay and fake geek girls. Yesterday I wrote about wonderful inclusive cosplay at Emerald City Comicon, today I am next to an article speaking against “fake geek girl” nonsense, celebrating casual cosplay and casual fandom. My warrior heart (a few of the memes reclaiming idiot nerd girl were created by this one) is thrilled.

Wow, Emerald City Comicon, I love you. It’s hard to write about. I’m exhausted, I’m overstimulated and shattered, I’m happy, I’m teary, I don’t know how to write about you.

1. Cosplayers
Wow, they were a wonderful part of the atmosphere and performance art experience of the convention. I loved the diversity, the creativity, the crossplay (eg women dressed as Dr Who or men dressed as Princess Leia) and the inclusiveness of it. Some people spent hundreds of hours or thousands of dollars on their costumes (or both), some had a cool idea a few bucks and wild abandon. The spectrum of creativity felt wonderful.

I loved that the general gaze of the convention was appreciative and supportive. Some conventions feel really objectifying and that gives things an unpleasant edge. Here it seemed like an inclusive celebration, a place that supported kids and adults to be creative.

On Saturday night I was Tempura Tantrum‘s sidekick and ran around finding cosplayers to interview. The dedication and super niceness of all the cosplayers was inspiring. They said the archive would be available on FlipOnTv, but it doesn’t look like it’s there yet. I’ve sent them a tweet to ask what they think the ETA is and will let you know what’s happening as soon as possible.

2. Derby Derby Derby
I was behind the Rat City Roller Girls booth for much of the con and wow, talk about fun and exhausting! I got pretty good at explaining the game using ten Rat City buttons, even if people kept giving the buttons away :P

It was interesting the number of people who went from “Oh yeah derby, I want to check it out sometime,” to “Wow that sounds cool, tickets please!” once we went through the rules of the game. I got so caught up and excited chatting to folks I forgot to eat, drink, didn’t sleep much and didn’t drink coffee the whole weekend… that’s derby for you.

3. Comics
I often find trying to process all the new information at a convention distressing. My brain gets overloaded by all the fine art and stories and I feel bad that I’m not giving them all my attention/money. This convention I mostly bought stuff from webcomic creators who helped keep my head together when I was working at Toora Women’s Refuge and later accidentally starting a revolution (it’s a long story). Folks I fell in love with in and never thought I’d even be on the same continent as them. Something Positive, The Devils Panties and Girls With Slingshots were things I devoured in huge chunks.

I also bought prints and the new anthology from CrabTank… but I lost that bag, so I have some sad feels. I’m so excited about CrabTank and so proud of how they get stronger and stronger.

Best Panel
I didn’t make it to many panels, but I’m glad I made it to “Looking Past the Target Audience”
A great panel on diversity, that was full of positive ideas and feelings. I hope it is the first of many like this, the panelists were Rachel Edidin, David Brothers, Andy Khouri, Regina Buenaobra, Sarah Kuhn, Cheryl Lynn Eaton, and Kate Welch.

When I was at Readercon, Nicole Taylor and I battled with public transport (slow slow bus in the burbs and then navigating America’s oldest subway system) to see Amanda Palmer do a ninja gig that was her audition tape/first practice for the TED talk. It’s amazing to see how she developed and honed her talk and I wonder how many times she practiced it, improvised with it and tuned it.

This talk made me cry… it’s been a crying kind of day :-)

I’m so glad I got to see both versions. Sometimes my heart is full of so many things, so what comes out is not my best articulation… far from it. Amanda Palmer’s talk reminds me that when you have something to say, an philosophy and experience to articulate, practice helps, weaving in new experiences as they arise, continually exploring, speaking and connecting together narratives. That to speak well, you must first speak, listen, respond, speak, listen and keep having conversations. It is only through speaking that she has polished this gem, it would not be such a fine talk if she had just bottled it up and waited until she had the perfect words.