Liz Argall

Dear Ms Moon on Daily Science Fiction

Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 | News update | No Comments

You can now read a flash fiction piece of mine, Dear Ms Moon, online at Daily Science Fiction.

This is what 61,000 words looks like

Monday, November 29th, 2010 | News update | No Comments

60,000 took me a while to get to. I’ve been wrestling with some structural issues that need to be resolved now, not in draft 2. It’s taken some unexpected turns that I must now analyze and interrogate. Different stories have different needs and this story demands careful thought and deep exploration. Things are starting to cohere, threads layered together again and again, this process isn’t linear enough to use a tapestry or weaving metaphor. This is more of a felting experience – bringing fibres together, tearing them away, bringing them together again and again in complex layers. Felt can make a top hat, felt can make a brownish smudge of tough fabric that is close to useless.

I wonder how my felted creature will end up… a hat… a doggie?

A Chance to Win Prizes

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010 | News update | No Comments

So Maxima Vrugleplex, a short story of mine, has turned into a play. A play premiering in Portland, Oregon in January as part of PULP DICTION II. PULP DICTION II is a series of live staged readings of world premiere works of pulp. It’s happening at the Brody Theater in downtown Portland OR, Jan 23rd, 28th, 29th, 30th and Feb 6th.

Tina Connolly also has a play innit, so you know it will be super mega fun excellent.

The crew at Pulp Diction are a clever nifty bunch. As part of their immense cleverness they are offering prizes. Hop onto their mailing list by 1 December and you could get free tickets! Tickets? Yes tickets, you know you love tickets.

They seem quite mad and yet competent and good at MAKING GOOD STUFF HAPPEN (I loved the adaptation process, working with Brian Allard to MAKE IT MIGHTY), so to receive entertaining show info, updates and chances to win fun prizes, please e-mail their  artistic director Matt Haynes at mcglue78@yahoo.com

—Prize details—

DEC 1st PRIZE DEADLINE: Write Matt Haynes (mcglue78@yahoo.com) and put “Pulp Please” in the subject line for a chance to win the first of our round of prizes: Two free tickets to the festival finale “NOIR(ISH)” by Evan Guilford Blake, directed by Brian Allard!

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you there.

New York in October – mildly incoherent, belated post

Friday, November 19th, 2010 | News update | No Comments

At the beginning of October I went to New York for a week. I stayed with my American doppleganger and marvelous food godess Liz for the first half and in a hotel in Wall Street while attending Comicon for Inception Strategies for the second half.

I failed to go into any art galleries or see many of the sights! But I walked a lot, ate a lot and discovered why so many writers do love New York. I also got very sleepy and often fell asleep on Liz’s couch (when I wasn’t staying up to the wee hours of the morning). It was such a friendly city, a pedestrian’s city where any block would lead to something interesting. I scarcely got off Manhatten Island, but there must be adventures for other times.

Pictures follow.

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Spirit Mountain Community Fund

Friday, October 15th, 2010 | News update | No Comments

I want to write a blog post about my adventures in New York, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get photos off my iPhone! When I am more technically savvy and a little less tired I shall try.

But, I am excited to share with you Spirit Mountain Community Fund‘s new website. I worked with them and Blue Mouse Monkey Design to rework their website from top to bottom. I’m particularly pleased with how the new grants section works.

Spirit Mountain Community Fund gives about 4 million dollars to not for profits in Oregon every year and are the giving arm of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. It was a huge amount of work with a lot of data to go through, but they were great clients to work with.

The website runs on Expression Engine and Blue Mouse Monkey are great at training their clients on how to use it themselves. Expression Engine is a really friendly, robust backend with an active developer community if you need something a bit more sophisticated than word press.

The grants section is the part I am most proud of.

This is what 41,000 words looks like

Friday, September 10th, 2010 | News update | 2 Comments

I continue to work on my novel. Half my strategy seems to be sidling up to it and pretending I’m not writing it. I scribble something on the whiteboard, but that’s not really writing it – I’m just putting down thoughts. Then I type it up on my computer, but that’s not really writing it – that’s transcribing with extra detail. Then I edit it and play with the structure of the novel, play with lines and add little bits and pieces – that’s not really writing either.

So far I’m up to 41,000 words of not writing. I’ve still got a long way to go and so please, don’t congratulate me (Derek down below will tell you why).

Do kick me in the bottom if you see any sign of me slacking off. Signs of slacking off include not twittering about the novel for more than a week or getting far too caught up in other projects.

New York

Thursday, September 9th, 2010 | News update | No Comments

I’ll be attending New York Comicon!

Ah New York, place of dreams.

One of my clients, Inception Strategies, has a booth and I’ll be doing portfolio reviews. Inception Strategies has been going through a few changes in recent times with new people coming on to the editorial team and working on more projects than ever.

IS is looking for tight pencillers and colourists. Inception Strategies has a few specific needs because funding comes from the Australian government and most of our stories are created by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and if you’re interested in working with IS it’d be great to drop by. I’ve just found out I’ll be staying at a hotel around Wall Street. I’m not sure what that means, but hopefully the subway runs late or the walk isn’t too far!

I’ll be heading up a week early to say g’day to the fantastic people of NY (hello, hello, it’ll be so good to see you again) and explore this mysterious creature in the East. It is of course very exciting and would like to eat my way from one side of New York to the other.

In other news, I burnt my lunch mochi.

I love mochi

The books beside my bed

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 | News update | No Comments

Before moving to Seattle a few months ago we had 2 pieces of furniture in America, a tiny Ikea coffee table and a set of drawers we picked up at a yard sale. We now have many things, a couch, a chair, a soda stream machine, an espresso machine, a good mattress, all the essentials…. and soon, Wednesday in fact, we will have bookshelves AND a bed base.

While it will be nice to have shelves and it will feel terribly grown up for us not to be sleeping on a mattress on the floor I will miss the ease of access to papers our low height provides.

All these books and tax receipts will be a foot further away! Good thing I have long arms :-)

We are almost fully kitted out, all we need now is a desk, filing cabinet, office chair, pots for plants… and sooner or later that TV-type-thing.

Glasses, glasses, glasses!

Friday, August 20th, 2010 | News update | 7 Comments

Hooray hooray, my glasses arrived.

What is wrong with my current glasses you might well ask.

Well, I let you decide for yourself.

So with much trepidation I ordered glasses online, after first getting my prescription from Special Eyes back in Canberra, Australia. I love those guys. Maria has spoiled me for any other optometrist.

Neil Stephenson's Snowcrash featured 499324, or as I like to call them, Grasshopper

Randa Abdel-Fattah's Does my head look big in this? featured 499421, I shall call them my Fabulous Darlings

Chris Roberson and Michael Alred's iZombie featured 452916, I call them Boggle. Based on the website I had high hopes these would look a bit scruffy and freaky, but they look dull with an awkward lens shape and for some reason make my eyes feel tired. They were the only $8 pair I bought (iZombie on the other hand is full of charm and the best Zombie Girl Detective story out there)

Gail Simone and Terry Dodson's Wonder Woman featured 210418, but to me they are Catherines.

Last time my glasses broke in the act of folishly cleaning them with a soft cloth(Oh no melon, my glasses broke) I just couldn’t wait for new glasses and shelled out $50 for an emergency weld.

The weld has stayed good throughout the recent trials and this time I fell asleep on them and crushed them under my hip. I managed to limp along, repairing my glasses a couple of times a day for a week and a half. And as my reward fours pairs of glasses from Zenni Optical for $85. Now that ain’t too shabby at all.

Back Stage at the Novel House

Thursday, August 19th, 2010 | News update | 3 Comments

I’ve been making good progress on my novel (working title “The Scent of Memory”) recently and here is my secret weapon.

(there is also a secondary whiteboard stuck to the cupboard door in the bedroom)

I am able to pace, have random ideas and scrawl them on a wall without any inconvenient getting out a notebook or flipping open a laptop (and all the distractions within the laptop). It’s just me and the wall.

One of the advantages of this over a notebook or scrap paper is my space is finite and a can’t forget where I put it. I scrawl, grab the essence, put it all down, but at some point I have to do stuff with it or the idea has to be so important it justifies using up real estate (such as letters on the top right corner MSMWG, which means More Space Monkey’s With Guns. MSWG is a motto of mine inspired by Eddie Izzard and is a reminder to take make strong decisions and not be afraid).

The clutter reminds me I need to do more with these raw ideas and once I write up stuff that I have scrawled I get to erase chunks of it. Erasing stuff from the whiteboard (technically a whiteyboard) I physically and metaphorically clear up mental space. That empty space refreshes me, rewards me, and invites me to fill it again. The black text on the right panel had a different scene on it yesterday. It was white space for a few hours before filling up within three hours with ideas for two new scenes.

Whenever I’m typing and the well runs dry there are always easy to find notes I can type up and rediscover. And nothing refills the well so much as the ability to run around while writing on walls.