The writer of this is Quaker (I used to be) and a visiting scholar at Yale Divinity School. My personal take on any religion is “no, thanks,” but I am a firm supporter of freedom of religion. And of tolerance, defined as follows: I will tolerate you, your quirks, and your beliefs, if you will tolerate me, my quirks, and my beliefs, and if nothing you do imposes on the rights of others to life, liberty, and the pursuit of lawful happiness. I, in my part, will not impose on your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of lawful happiness.
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.
This is the first of my own books I’ve ever received a notification about. I thought it was kind of cool.
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Dear Amazon.com Customer,
As someone who has purchased or rated books by Holly Lisle, you might like to know that Hawkspar: A Novel of Korre will be released on June 24, 2008.
You can pre-order yours at a savings of $9.50 by following the link below.
Review
“Anyone will likely be captivated by this stern and stirring treatise on the dangers of enforced peace and the virtues of paranoid preparation for the worst.”
–Publishers Weekly on Talyn
“Fierce loyalties, foul magics and fresh plot twists abound in Holly Lisle’s tale of love, war and possession.”
–Jacqueline Carey, bestselling author of Kushiel’s Dart on Talyn
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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’ve been haunting the local bookstore, and THE RUBY KEY isn’t on the shelves yet, so it didn’t really dawn on me that people are already reading it.
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.
Done, done, and done the way I meant the book to be. My editor should have that massive stack of pages in her hands tomorrow. I’m relieved, exhausted, and just a little bit jubilant.
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.
I’m doing the copyedit of HAWKSPAR right now. This time, everything is still there. It’s a much more pleasant experience than going through your manuscript and discovering your editor removed your second protagonist, lemme tell you.
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 heard from my Tor editor today that HAWKSPAR will be coming out at full length in one volume. The odds of Tor wanting REDBIRD, the third stand-alone in the world, are somewhere between slim and none, but at least the second book will be right, not ruined.
I’m very, very happy about this news.
Basically, the news is, there is no news. The book’s been moved back in the schedule to June, 2008, but what we do from there is still up in the air.
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.
Time flies when someone is wrecking your book. I can’t believe it’s Friday again.
Here’s Aaran (that unnecessary male) when he makes his first appearance in HAWKSPAR. Second scene–the entire second scene, not just a snippet, so it’s really long. (Hence the more note two paragraphs down so that I don’t kill the important shipping notice for international Book Giveaway folks.) This was one of about fifty scenes ripped out “in your and the book’s best interest.”
Yeah, I’m still pissed off. This scene should be restored in the version that goes to press, but I still haven’t heard anything.
| NOTICE: This material is copyrighted, uncopyedited late draft, probably buggy, and possibly not even going to be in the final draft. THOUGH IT HAD BETTER BE. Do not quote or repost anywhere or in any format. Thanks |
Aaran av Savissha, tracker for the Haakvaryn pack of Tonk wolf-ships, sat on the higharm, legs wrapped around the foremast, hands clutching ratlines. With his eyes closed, he tracked the fleeing slaver. “Two degrees north-west,” he bellowed over the scream of the storm.
The runner slid down the ratlines, careened across the deck to Captain Haakvar, and repeated Aaran’s direction. Within moments, he was back on the ratlines, and Aaran felt the Windsteed aligning itself with the slaver. “Dead on,” he yelled to the boy, a child who was one of the captain’s multitude of nephews, and the boy gave him an excited smile. Then the child clambered back into the riggings and settled below Aaran on the lines, waiting the next message to the captain. [click to continue…]
The GREEN MAGIC I proposal left at the beginning of the week, unmentioned and unlauded, but done at last to my satisfaction. HAWKSPAR is unresolved–I won’t know anything more about it until I hear back from my agent, Robin.
And I am in the midst of happier–much happier–things. THE RUBY KEY, you see, felt short to my Scholastic editor, and since the thing I wanted most when I sent it in was more room to write it, and since all the things she asked if I could expand were things I had kept very tight for length reasons originally, I’m now coming up with cool, exciting ways to get all the stuff in there that I had to leave out initially.
BOOK GIVEAWAY UPDATE
Along with that, I got the last two US book boxes out the door this morning. My one paid-for foreign box will go tomorrow. The plastic things came in, finally. Turns out I had to have them, but because I do the postage online, I didn’t need the freakin’ forms.
ANYway.
FOREIGN SHIPPING
Deedlit
WritingAngel
lacysavage
shay
You can now use the PayPay button at the top left to pay the shipping on your box of books. Postage to England, Australia, and all other UK addresses is 36.15, which includes one dollar toward PayPal fees and tape and packing peanuts. Shipping to Canada is $22.85, also including one extra dollar.
THE REST OF THE BOOKS
I have boxes. But now I’m waiting for packing tape and a big bag of packing peanuts in order to get everything else out the door, so it will probably be next week before I get any additional boxes packed.
HOW MANY BOOKS ARE LEFT?
Maybe enough to finish off the first list, but probably not. Barring some loaves-and-fishes miracle, not enough to get anyone who isn’t on the first list.
