Liz Argall

On Monday I wrote about about Bruce Livingston’s TedX talk.

It inspired a sequence of Things Without Arms and Without Legs comics. Here’s a link to part 1 if you want to check it out.

I feel like a fool not mentioning this last week when Tina Connolly was coming into town as part of the SFWA Reading Series (great reading series, it’s in Portland, Seattle and I hear it might go to more cities soon).Tina Connolly’s fab eclectic podcast of short fiction, Toasted Cake, will be doing an audio version of “Shadow Play.”

I love performing my own work… I’m still a bit too intimidated/concerned about getting all the tech right to do my own audio recordings, but I love to do readings. The nice thing about Tina reading my work is a know she’ll do things that honor the story and do things I never would have imagined. It reminds me a little of comics – the thing I love about comics collaboration and the thing I miss when I’m not writing comics is the way a comic artist can take my script and vividly realize it in ways that add nuanced dimensions I could never  have imagined.

If you haven’t read any of Tina’s fiction I highly recommend it. I was full of a joyous jealousy when I read the opening pages of Iron Skin. The way she builds the tension, back story and characterization through a simple door knocker inspires me! Writing this blog post has got me thinking, I’m going to put myself through a writing exercise where I take her opening pages, shift context and try to do exactly what she did. It’s not an exercise I’ve done outside of a workshop context, but it will be good for me.

Anyway, keep an eye out for “Shadow Play” on Toasted Cake and get your mittens on Ironskin (I’m sorry, I can’t give you my copy, I’m keeping it for writing exercises).

For anyone who creates or has hurts. And it makes me wonder, when I write, how often do I give myself nine seconds before silencing the vulnerable part, judging or running away to distractions? I think watching this will help me make better art, it is so easy to flinch away from the edge. I hope you find it useful too.

Coda: I had the pleasure of working the Bruce and PlayWrite when I lived in Portland. The research project and documentary were ambitious things in the works. Bruce has amazing ways of dreaming big and somehow getting it all to happen.

oop! I wrote this update last week. Then I got all shy and forgot about it!

I’m going to Launch Pad!

Launch Pad is an esteemed astronomy workshop run out of the University of Wyoming that gives writers and editors intensive immersion into the world of astronomy as well as hands on experience at an observatory. Writers and editors that I admire have attended the workshop and all have sung its praises.

I first applied to Launch Pad in 2010, a freshly minted Clarion Graduate who had just started work on an overly ambitious first contact novel. I didn’t get in that time, but try out early, try out often! I got in this time. My body of work has grown since my first application. The ambitious novel is complete (although I’m sure I could edit it forever) and I’m trying to figure out what marathon to run next.

I’m so excited by this opportunity. I thrive in intensive learning environments. I love being around people who are passionate about what they do.  I love going into dark country and seeing the stars in ways you just can’t in a city or town.

I’m super excited… who knows, maybe I can get there by train!

edited to invite comic creator suggestions too

Wiscon the World’s Leading Feminist Science Fiction Convention has given me my tentative schedule (four panels and a reading). There may be tweaks and changes.  I hope to see some of you there and regardless of whether you can make it to Madison Wisconsin 24-27 May I would like you help with the Karen Axness Memorial Panel: Women Writers You’ve Probably Never Heard Of.

This panel has a history to live up to, “A WisCon tradition (this year is the 36th!). Panel members will discuss the latest books by female SF and fantasy authors, emphasizing new female authors in these fields.”

I need your help! I want your suggestions for what new books and female authors or comic writers/creators to mention and bit about their work (post in comments please). This panel is so intimidating, there’s so much great stuff out there!

I also want to bend the panel a little and talk about short fiction writers – I think of short fiction as this wonderful experimental space and I’m excited by the voices coming up in those grounds. Given the pressure on writers for their first book to perform it’s strategically important to keep an eye out for the short fiction writers you love so they can keep bringing the experimental and the awesome.

Send me your suggestions in the comments, or e-mail if you prefer, pretty pretty please!

My full con schedule behind the cut:

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Read More Read More

Things Without Arms and Without Legs share their experience of me aging. “Boom“

If you like webcomics, a fantastic ego boosting present for me is to subscribe (free) to my Things comic over on Comic Rocket. While you’re there you can subscribe to other webcomics you love and never lose your place again :-).

Over at Horrific Miscue you can see all the March publication radness of my group (and it’s very nice indeed to have your work called “haunting and deeply satisfying.”

For my birthday I’m going to do chores, try to write/draw and maybe go to a Russian Spa (it costs $20 on your birthday) before going to Rat City’s Fit Skate.

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).