Liz Argall

I have an awesome new iPad thanks to my sweetie. Now I can draw drawings at a much higher resolution, run moire sophisticated apps, the keyboard is more sensitive AND I now have a camera in my iPad.

On Thursday afternoons I meet with fabulous folks to co-work and talk about all things writing (inspired by Portland’s Fireside Writers). I love these folks and here’s an image of some of them :) the lighting conditions were terrible, so I’m pleased it captured faces and everything… I’m still figuring out all the focusing options, hence the ‘artistic’ blur.

Two more comics drawn today, so my write-a-thon self is satisfied. I might try for some words too :)

Happy hugs to all.

Sooooo, I was cleaning the house today and I whacked/wrenched my toe against a swivel chair so hard I sprained it. Three days before tryouts, nooooo!

I was worried I might have done something truly horrible to it, given how janky it felt, but initial prognosis is sprain and that works all right with me. Toes hurt like a beast, but on the plus side it’s forced me to put more weight on my back wheels and I think that’s helped my crossovers (although my agility’s not so good right now). I do whimper like a sad puppy when I put my skates, but hopefully it’ll be better by tryouts.

In other exciting news, Kate from PFM gave me a Lego doll avatar as a bacon camp graduation present. I am quite chuffed. Behold the Liz!

Behold the Liz fighting the fierce purple monster!

Quite some time ago (was it 3 months? I cannot remember if it was before or after the last Rat City tryouts) I got some new rollerskates. I am quite fond of my Crazyskates and I know they’ve been kinder to me than other skates would have been, but it has still been something of a rough ride. In part because of my own ignorance around proper lacing technique and in part because I have somewhat sensitive feet and ankles.

The first thing I did in my Crazyskates was have my left toenail go black. I’m not even sure why. My toe just got really painful and the nail went black! I hope its part of my overall foot improvement – I have big toes that curl up like crazy and carve holes in my sneakers. The toes are slowly descending, thanks to stretches and skating, but the joints aren’t so used to normal planes of existence.

Anyhow, the black toenail has been a thing for quite some time now, then it suddenly became 50% normal looking. I got excited, but then a few days later it went yellow and started to distort when I got it wet. I had hoped the whole thing would be gone by tryouts, but I suspect I’ll still have my snaggletooth in place on Saturday. I’ve never lost a toenail before. It has been painful on occasion, but not half as screamingly awful as I thought it would be. Now that it’s just a snaggle it doesn’t really hurt. Phew! If you’d told me a year ago I’d have a toenail come off I would have been full of fear, but it wasn’t that bad at all.

In Memoria, weddings, parties, write-a-thon, comics, derby, anything.

Sometimes all you can do is make art. My Things Without Arms and Without Legs comic has become something special to me. When I found out my father-in-law died a drew this between the hours of 2am and 5am. Tree.

Tina Connolly has produced a marvelous podcast version of my short story Shadow Play. I wrote the story just before Leonard Pung, Clarion classmate, died and now it comes to your ears just after Lester’s passing. Life is a funny old thing. I hope you enjoy the story. “Every time the shadow puppets play someone is saying goodbye”

Yesterday I was skating at the Rat’s Nest for four hours. First we had a bacon camp scrimmage (aka we played an informal game of Roller Derby) and then I went to a two hour practice with PFM. I’m trying out for Rat City in less than a week and I want to get better at all the things. I love roller derby and I love how much I’m growing by aiming high (according to current WFTDA rankings Rat City’s travel team is ranked number six in the world). Try out early, try out often is my motto, and this will be my third attempt. I learn something and grow as a skater every time.

I was more than a little tired when I got home, but I realized it was day one of the Clarion Write-a-thon, so I dug deep and created some Lifestyle advice from a small pink bunny.

It’s nice that the pressure of the write-a-thon has already caused me to create where I might not have. You can sponsor me and join in the shenanigans if you want to. Thank you to everyone who has sponsored me already. There’s an honor roll on the right hand side of the page.

For the write-a-thon I am in a writing team with Shauna Roberts, Kim Stanley Robinson and our fearless leader Ken Schneyer (for now, the team might grow). We are the Pungent Wedding Guests. Pungent – in memory of Leonard who loved puns. Wedding Guests in honor of our delightful classmates Ed Gauvin and Nicole Taylor who just got married. We stink with happiness for them. They are seriously (perhaps profoundly) adorable and it makes me happy thinking about their future adventures together.

Now on with the words, the exercise, the eating healthy food and drinking LOTS of water.

During the Karen Axness Memorial Panel: Women Writers You’ve Probably Never Heard Of  at Wiscon I promised to add every book recommended to my Wiscon2013SFF Goodreads list. This list contains all the suggestions made while I was preparing, plus everything from the panel, plus a little extra. I saw Sofia Samatar had put together a reading list from the Contemporary Fantasy and Science Fiction from the Muslim World panel and I just had to add women from that :-). Go to Sofia Samatar’s blog to read her full list (with images of book covers and everything).

I hope they’re useful!

@SFWApro

regarding unacceptable behavior. Contains fierce, but entirely safe for work language.

And please watch before reading my words. I think the video is important… hopefully for obvious reasons.

Moral courage is important to me. …

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Mermaid’s Hook is now live at Podcastle! Woohoo!

A magnificent introduction by Ann Leckie, a dreamy reading by Julia Rios plus some lovely end notes by Dave Thompson. Kinda funny, but I think I needed to hear my own words today (even if loving and caring can be a painful thing).

It’s rated R, for disturbing imagery. I hadn’t expected an R rating!  I feel mildly chuffed – also a bit weird, ’cause I can easily imagine studying a story like this in primary school! Thanks Leslie, thanks AME. I’m sure studying marine biology from a young age helped me write this story.

I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for bringing it to the world of audio, PodCastle.

#SFWApro

If this image puzzles you, you might find my post about writing this story useful

Since coming to America from Australia I’ve really missed an active reconciliation culture. There are many awesome activist things that happen here, but reconciliation is something that it’s important to me. It’s like breathing, it’s a fundamental part of the country that is inside me and the land I belong to. Sometimes it’s hard to talk about, fundamental things are like that. I end up having these long, complex conversations that are probably mystifying at the other end.  There’s still a part of me that feels empty when a meeting starts and there’s no acknowledgement of country, no respect paid to traditional custodians, the history and cost that gave us the opportunity to meet. …

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