Liz Argall

Novel words written: 76,000

Social Message comics worked on: 12

Number of Clients: 4

Stories I edited/refined for submission: 13 (I think)

Utterly new stories completed: 5

Submissions Sent: 76

Acceptances: 6 (Including 1 reprint and on Maxima Vrugleplex becoming a play)

Awaiting Response: 8

Stories Published: 2 (1 reprint)

Super Secret Project Proposals sent: 1

Super Secret Project Proposals accepted: 1

Super Secret Project Proposal outline & chapters: 6,000

Graphic Novel submissions: 1

Cities lived in: 2

Visas: 2

Community

Stories Critiqued: 50+

Stories Slushed: 100+

Conventions Attended: New York Comicon, World Fantasy Con, Steamcon, Locus Awards, Stumptown, PAX, Emerald City Comicon, Potlatch… were there others? I can’t recall!

The fantabulous Ben Bates and I made a one page comic together out of love of the Muppets. You can check it out on his website. (Click the thumbnail, then scroll to the bottom and click full size if you want to read the words).

Ben draws Sonic the Hedgehog for Archie Comics and was great to work with. He is full of good things and cool bananas. It is important artists get love, so if you like his stuff let him know I will send you virtual squishy hugs.

hugs in anticipation ;-)

Liz

My TRUE secret origin story, what I got out of Clarion, when to snoopy dance and more…

All on Angela Slatter’s gorgeous website.

Note to self: finish writing novel and then revamp website and emprettyficate.

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

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?

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.

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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Read More Read More

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.

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.

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