However, when I’ve been up to it, I’ve been working. On Rebel Tales, on NovelWritingSchool.com, and also on fiction.

I was doing pretty well with TalysMana, but my daughter has some scheduling problems right now, so we’re having to put that on hold until she gets her schedule worked out.

Meanwhile, I’m putting together some shortish serial fiction for Rebel Tales. The current piece is Help Wanted, introducing a new heroine in a new SF world. I also want to write some Cadence Drake shorts for Rebel Tales. And I’m considering what I could do in the way of Tonk short stories for Rebel Tales Fantasy–probably not Talyn, probably not Hawkspar.

You can watch the progress on the progress bars to the right.

ADDED LATER: Got 581 words on Help Wanted tonight.

She used Talyn as her basic reference, and got a lot of the rest of the details from the Tonk Stuff I’ve posted online.

She asked me a few additional questions, though, I provided details, and she sent me her Halloween pictures, along with permission to post them here. I thought this was really cool, so I present to you, EJ, Tonk Shielder.

Start with the clan mark tattooed on her left hand. You can find ALL the Tonk Clan Marks here:

http://hollylisle.com/images/tonk_clans_&_clan_symbols.jpg

You’ll note that EJ is Clan Berdaa, (pronounced bair-DAY-ah) one of the New Clans.

EJ's Tonk Clan Mark

I was able to provide a good description for the insignia on the beret–I hadn’t gone into detail on the battle ribbons, so EJ had to wing those.

Beret, Vest, Shirt with Battle Ribbons on Shoulder.

And finally, the full Tonk Shielder uniform with cap and beret.

EJ in Full Tonk Shielder Uniform

If you ever do a costume from one of my books, I’d love to see the pictures, and I’ll be thrilled to post them here.

(With, maybe, an exception for the bodyart in Hunting The Corrigan’s Blood. Nudity and all, you know.)

I will not pretend to be someone I’m not in order to have you like me under false pretenses. I ask that you return the favor.

And I don’t tolerate child molesters, rapists, murderers, or factions of religions whose only happiness can be achieved if I am subsumed into their religion, or killed for not joining.

This is, I think, a reasonable definition of tolerance. It may not be perfect, but neither am I.

And with that thought, I give you Sarah Ruden writing for the Wall Street Journal on Yale’s Christian/Muslim Reconciliation Conference.

Some of what she had to say made me think of Talyn. Some of it made me think of Hawkspar.

Thanks to Jim for the link.

Arconna said—The fact that Democrats accused Republicans of fiddling with votes and intentionally disenfranchising voters who had names similar to criminals is just as disturbing as Democrats doing the same thing. All that that proves is that no party has the interests of the American people in mind, just their own. I’m absolutely sick of this divide between parties.

YES! That’s it. That’s my secret agenda! I want the Democrats and the Republicans, people in any third parties, and those of us who have NO party that stands for what we think and believe, to work together for the good of the country, and the good of the citizens in it.

All the ceaseless bickering partisanship, all the Democrats Are Bad, Republicans Are Bad, We’re Better Than You Are idiocy, is destroying all of us. The nation is too big and to diverse to speak with one voice. But its varied voices need to start talking to each other, rather than at each other.

The Romans were masters of “Divide and Conquer,” and kept half a world of enemies successfully occupied for a couple thousand years while they ruled with increasing despotism. Both Republicans and Democrats from the far edges of their respective constituencies are using the same “Divide and Conquer” strategy quite effectively to keep people who mostly agree with each other at each other’s throats. So long as we remain distracted by fighting each other about the red flags each side waves in our faces, we cannot force those in power to change.

We are a nation deeply divided by politics and the people who wield politics as their weapon. Yet most of us share the common ground of love of liberty, a belief in human rights and freedoms, the right to the pursuit of happiness, and the value of representative government made up of people we chose who ACTUALLY REPRESENT US. Our divisions are taking all of that away from us, a piece here and a piece there, from both ends of the spectrum. The goal of both sides is to get into power and then stay there. What we want and what we need as a people and a nation does not begin to figure into that.

HUGE SPOILER WARNING FOR TALYN FOLLOWS—–

I don’t like to publicize the themes and subplots of my books, because I’d rather people read them and get what they need out of what I put there, but that IS the theme of TALYN.

The Tonks are conservative. The Eastils are liberal. And by fighting each other they miss the bigger picture—that the rest of the world has no reason to love them, and many good reasons to wish to take the good they’ve both created away from them. Divided, they are conquered. Without each other, they cannot survive.

But Tina already has a review up (and is giving a copy away), and I’m not ready.

I knit two pairs of Genna’s socks to give away, and they’re done, but not blocked, and I haven’t done certificates of authenticity for them or anything. At the moment, they’re just two teenager-sized pairs of woolly green socks.

If you spot the book, please let me know where you find it (in the store–YA, front of the store, in with the adult fantasy….I worry about where it’s going to land), and when it lands.

Meanwhile, I’ll get the sock stuff done for the giveaway.

The whole book is there. In June of next year, it’ll be on shelves. Probably for about fifteen minutes, as was Talyn. But it will, by God, be mine, and not some butchered disaster.

Have to have the manuscript back by November 1st, and it’s a big, big book, so I’m going to be scarce for a while.

I’m very, very happy about this news.

I’m exhausted. I can’t stand even thinking about the book anymore. It is, I think, the best story I’ve ever told, and I can’t bear to look at it.

I sat down and figured out my options. They are:

• It comes out at full length in one volume, prohibitively priced. It barely sells. I lose.
• It comes fifty-five thousand words shorter, not the story I wanted to tell at all, gutted, either by me or by someone else. Whether it sells or not at that length, it isn’t the book I wrote, nor does it resemble the book I wanted it to be. I lose.
• It comes out in two volumes, causing readers to pay twice to read one story. The books sells poorly, because the two-book gimmick is a death knell. EVERYBODY–readers, publisher, AND me–loses.
• There is, as far as I can see, no fourth option.

My editors are all on vacation through the weekend, so I’m going to take a few days off to knit, spend time with my youngest, and breathe.

Air Force Kid got a date on shipping out. September. Not sure whether it will be Iraq or Afghanistan. He’ll be gone for nine months, and in harm’s way. This is a far bigger deal than the book. So my objective is to just deal with the fucking book, and keep my priorities straight.