Hello,

Life is joyous, the days are slowly getting warmer and longer. Today I was very brave and submitted a story to the New Yorker. The story had no SF elements, unless you count use of current day technology and a whacky narrator. I'd been making myself miserable trying to figure out where to send this interstitial-feeling work, until at last I realise I was waiting for permission to send stories to imposing places. No Ghettos for me! 'tis sent!

I've updated my website a bunch of times (www.lizargall.com). There's a Clarion blogs update, a henna/modeling post and a few other things.

Hope you are all having a wonderful new year.

love

Liz

I must find a new LJ experiment, I do miss it and interestingly enough I am writing less right now... I think, I should do more things with data, I like data even if I am bad at collecting it.

Duotrope (http://www.duotrope.com/) kindly tells me:
Pending responses since Clarion: 9 (8 individual stories, 2 out of Clarion, 6 completed afterwards)
Submissions sent since: 20
Submissions sent this month: 8
Acceptance ratio for the past 12 months: 9.09 % (that's 1, Clarion Week 2 story)

After a busy few months in educational comics I now have a double quiet spell. No more freelance work slated until March at the earliest, most of my Clarion stories that can be edited have been (one awaiting final critiques after an edit, one outstanding which is probably a page 1 rewrite). I, fingers crossed, have some comics projects that can start romping, but other than that... 'tis a little scary the quietude! What next?

More stuff on my website update, Cabbages and kings -> audio, thanksgiving, publishing news. http://lizargall.com/2009/12/mid-december-roundup/

So the write slow project became not write at all over the Orycon weekend. I got tired, I got worried about various pressing deadlines from new work that had emerged. AND I had got disinterested. it's tricky to tell when it's time to give up and when it's time to push through. I don't know if I have failed in my write slow or if the write slow came to a natural conclusion. It is certainly a time to think about it and see what is the next beneficial experiment.

I did learn some things about purposely building a world, about getting to know a character through their action. Strangely enough I like the characters more now, I'm just floundering around with the story. For a long time Jo was just a blank slate and I didn't like her much until I went back in and found her step by step.

Writing it in this public space helped me stay motivated and push through to some interesting places as a I didn't want to fall down in public. Interestingly enough it made it lonelier as well, which made it more challenging at times. I'll have to decide if the sense of loneliness, is worth the sense of motivation - everything has a two edged sword. I do like how it gave a greater, constant sense of utility to LJ and has made it easier to keep up with people's adventures on LJ.

For better or worse it meant I was absolutely writing every day and as indicated in previous posts other creative juices seemed to flow with greater ease.

I need to do some planning, figure out what are the experiments I need/want to do next, finish rewriting a few stories, write some new stories and figure out what and how I'm going to write a novel. Suggestions are very welcome.

In the meantime, lots of reading/critiquing (and inevitably slushing) to do.

Well, for the first time in a long time I'm writing truly slowly. At one minute to midnight I have 1 sentence for write slow. I've been noodling around with another novel concept and left it too late in the day to give this one proper energy. It's a short sentence too!

( “Shhhhhhh,” said Mel. )

I have blogged, and improved my website a smidgen http://lizargall.com/

Today I edited bits and pieces and inserted new sentences throughout

Write slow has been going for two weeks and a day. Fresh sentences every day. During this time I have also written a short story, Dear Ms Moon, written a serialized twitfic, made am almost half way through a story with a non-human protagonist and taken a few other creative risks.

It started with 1-3 sentences per day, unlimited editing. Then 1-5 sentences, now 1-10 sentences. If 1-10 sentences is stable for a while and it seems right I will let is stretch again in a little while. A bit over 1500 words in 15 days.

It has been interesting to watch how my relationship with the story has changed. The early honeymoon period where I loved writing every sentence and especially loved editing, it was like slowly untangling hair with a comb or slowly working wood, carving, sanding, polishing. Then came sections of loathing and confusion where I couldn't bear to look at my words and skimmed over. Having the text run dry on me, speeding up to try to get lift (ie more sentences allowed), leaping around for a day or two, then going back and building its frame some more, going back into earlier sections of the text to find out more about Jo. A fabric is starting to emerge, characters and the world are slowly developing, every day yesterday's trajectory disappears and new trajectories emerge. I think the story is getting stronger, I hope it is.

It still counts as Thursday 'cause I haven't gone to sleep yet. Though doh! I actually wrote it at noon.

( She stayed out of the way, occasionally swigging bad wine goonie bags from sullen boys on the kerb of their lonely country town. )

ooops, almost forgot.

Interesting, I am liking my story less, so I am writing faster. I'm writing earlier in the day, editing less and wanting to put more words on the page so I have more to experiment with. I have given myself permission to write more sentences as the project continues, a slow escalation.

I probably would have given up on the story if it wasn't a simple commitment of a few lines. It would be an embarrassing thing to fail at and there would be witnesses.

Wrote a new short story today as well (flash fiction actually) called Dear Ms Moon. I'm certain the write slow project helped me be in the flow that generated that. Thanks must also go to Italo Calvino for Dear Ms Moon.

Less editing today so I've only included the last 3 paragraphs, everything else remains unchanged.

( Her mind had been fragmented by the fall and scattered as it was into pieces of fluttering confetti or thistle down saw many things, touched many things and, lips to tongue, unlike any before or after, Mel spoke of what those fragments touched. )