Tee Morris

Writer, podcaster. and streamer

Tee Morris

The Tough Choices (Part I: Silencing the Techie Talk)

You know that blogpost I’ve been promising concerning Rafe, Askana, Billi, and their respective futures?

Make sure you’re sitting down, because this is it.

I could just make it short and sweet, but you all deserve a lot better than that. Also, I don’t think I can do that. I try for “short and sweet” and then, after I say what I have to say about what I really need to touch base on, it’s 3000 words later.

Besides, would you all expect any less from me? After all, if you’re reading this blog, chances are you’ve bought one of my books. Do I have to remind you how big Morevi is?

As many of you know, the previous year came out of the corner swinging haymakers like a wrecking machine. Rough seas had actually hit in 2009, but it was the beginning of 2010 that changed everything for me and my daughter. While I was counting on change in 2010, I didn’t foresee things changing as dramatically and as quickly as they did. I think Pip put it best when she said to me “Life around you is accelerated.”

I felt those G-forces most assuredly last year.

This blogpost is about the professional choices I had to make in 2010, and what is facing me in this new year. Those of you asking about Rafe, Askana, and Billi may not be thrilled with these decisions (Heck, you may flat out hate what I have to say…), but I am considering the grander scale of what I want to make a career. This means tough choices, choices you all as fans of my work should know about.

And instead of slamming you all with these touch choices in one grandiose blogpost, I’m breaking these tough choices up into a series of blogposts. I’d rather not melt your brains with a few thousand words. No need to serve the entrée and dessert with the starter, right?

So, let’s begin with a favorite of Tee Morris fans. Let’s start with where I opened my mouth and choked on my Reeboks. [Read more…] about The Tough Choices (Part I: Silencing the Techie Talk)

Come on, Baby, Cover Me!

Final Covert Art for Phoenix Rising
click image to view full size

We’ve been sitting on this cover art for months!

When Pip Ballantine and I first saw it, we were over the moon. Imagine the heartbreak when our editor, Diana Gill, told us “You can’t post this anywhere just yet.” To watch the evolution of this cover, from the earlier drafts to the final product, has been a real trip; and while this is my fifth novel, it feels like my first. [Read more…] about Come on, Baby, Cover Me!

The Price of Publicity

I promised myself to work on my blogging skills. It’s a bit like getting back into shape, you know? I’m struggling to get back into a routine, and everyone around me is telling to cut myself a break considering the year I have been facing. The reality is, just like staying in shape, I have to do this. Next year, as many of you know, I will be returning to novel-length fiction with my first mass market paperback novel, Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel. Me. The Kiwi. Steampunk. The cover is just beautiful, I’m telling you. Stay patient and, as soon as we get approval, we will go live with it.

2011 is a big step for me as a writer; and I’m trying to take everything I have learned since 2002 when Morevi first rolled off the presses, and apply it to the now. One of the hardest lessons I learned over this near-decade of writing professionally is just how easy it is to find yourself in the red. Not the red ink of an editor’s pen, mind you, but the financial red of your bank account telling you in so many words that you — the professional author — are flat broke. [Read more…] about The Price of Publicity

GUEST BLOGPOST: Real Women Have Heads

As many of you know, I collaborate with a kiwi. When Philippa Ballantine and I get together, silliness and trouble usually ensue. Whether it is podcasting or The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, people tend to really grok what Pip and I produce.

But this time, the rant is 100% New Zealand made.

Celebrating the upcoming release of her solo title and mass market paperback debut Geist, Pip brings her own gripes and grumbles to my desk. The rant she’s got delivers a swift kick to the jimmies to that age-old saying “Never judge a book by its cover…” and I got to say that she is spot on. She is certainly not alone in this stance, and perhaps with Pip’s cover (featured here) and the as-yet-to-be-released-but-oh-so-hawt Ministry cover, the tide could be turning in her argument. Still, after reading this post, you will not be able to refrain from giggling when you visit a bookstore.

I mean, the kiwi — she’s got a point.

 

 

Perhaps in the podosphere and blogosphere I am not know for my rants—and New Zealanders are generally stoic, get-on-with-it types, but when Tee offered up his blog, I knew this was the perfect location for me to let loose on a subject that has been bothering me of late. [Read more…] about GUEST BLOGPOST: Real Women Have Heads

Stranger on a Train XIV

And now for something completely different: I’m not alone on this ride, am not in Virginia. Heck, I’m not even on the East Coast.

Sonic Boom and I are back on US soil after two weeks in New Zealand. Our ride into town, though, wasn’t able to drive us all the way into San Francisco, so we are taking the rail into the city for a playdate with Starla & Scott Hutchton and crew. While I find myself slipping back into a USA state-of-mind, SB sees today as just another grand adventure.

Sometimes I wonder if I lost that perspective on things, and then I think about the past two weeks in Aotearoa. What a great time we had.

Today is a little bittersweet. An important element is missing from our formula of fun. I feel it. So does she.

We miss you, Pip.