Tee Morris

Writer, podcaster. and streamer

Rants, Opinions, and Overall Observations

NaNoWriMo: It Should Be Your First Step, Not Your Excuse

 

18691SD2November is upon us, and with the close of Halloween and the beginning of a new month you might be seeing across various social media platforms “daily word counts” being posted, sudden concerns about productivity, or rants over applications like “Scrivener” or “Write or Die” when they unexpectedly crashes. If this is happening to you, I’d recommend stocking up on coffee for your friends and patience with yourself. November is the month of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.

I’ve seen writers react both positively and negatively over the event. The positive sentiment usually constitutes cheerleading, tough love advice, and an overall celebration of hardcore, P90 X-style word-herding. The authors who loathe NaNoWriMo? They hate it with a passion, and don’t get the nay-sayers started on the NaNoWriMo instances that see publication. That’s some prime vitriol there. [Read more…] about NaNoWriMo: It Should Be Your First Step, Not Your Excuse

Five Things I Learned When Writing a Young Adult Book

curseofthesilverpharoah_smallRecently, The Curse of the Silver Pharaoh went live on Amazon, print editions premiering this week at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, provided we get no unforeseen whammies from CreateSpace. (Thanks, Hurricane Matthew!) Silver Pharaoh is not my first novel, nor is it my first foray into steampunk, as many of you know. The thing about this book that has me fidgeting nervously as reviews start to trickle in is that Silver Pharaoh is my first step into the realm of Young Adult fiction.

And that terrifies me. Greatly.

I’ve got a lot of feelings about Y.A. Fiction, one being that those reading Y.A. are not necessarily “young” adults. Think about it—while Harry Potter could be easily dismissed as a “kid’s book” and is found in the Children’s sections of bookstores and libraries everywhere, just as many adults devoured the adventures of the Boy Who Lived just as ravenously as its target audience.

So, yeah, working in the wild and woolly world of Y.A. for the first time, I picked up a few things… [Read more…] about Five Things I Learned When Writing a Young Adult Book

Writing Is Not a Solo Sport

aly_drew
photo credit: Arne Parrott

Striking a hero’s pose here is Drew Mierzejewski. I briefly met him two years ago through Alyson Grauer. Now if Aly’s name sounds familiar, it’s because you can find her lending her voice to one of my podcasts here, hear her rock the steampunk here, do it again here, and then giving good panel at DemiCon 25. Aly’s got game. So does Drew. That might be one of many reason these two got married.

Check it out, Chicago. This is an up-and-coming power couple to watch. I’m just sayin’.

Thing about Drew—I wish I knew him better. Something just tells me we’d be talking to the wee small hours in the morning about…stuff. Deep stuff. I especially got that impression when I saw a random Facebook post from him yesterday about the road creatives walk. The entire thread is here, and you really should check it out or even chime in if you like, but this was the part that made me stop and think…

Therefore, I would like to place a hypothetical to each of you. Why do we do walk this road alone? There are many of us! Why do we not band together in a great bonfire of creativity and make art? Is it impractical? It is idealistic? Is it too terrifying? What is stopping us from creating a massive company that makes art year round, in which we pool resources and talent to make the best of what we have to offer? Now, I want to reiterate that I ask this in hypothetical but I do want to hear your thoughts on this. So please take a moment and tell me in the comments what you think. Tell me why.

[Read more…] about Writing Is Not a Solo Sport

Just Not Feeling It: The Lack of Sympathy for Seth Grahame-Smith

PPZIt had been a while since I’d been able to blog and I wanted a topic that would get back on writerly advice. This morning, I was intending to blog a bit about the beauty of research. It’s something I was reminded of when I penned for Tor.com a response to WIRED on the history of podcasting fiction. So “Research” was to be my topic du jour until I saw in my feed this morning the story of author Seth Grahame-Smith and his current battle with New York publishing house, Hachette. The Guardian reported that the author inspiring a string of mash-up novels (his being Pride and Prejudice and Zombies which led Quirk Books to publish other works such as Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters and Android Karenina) is being sued by Hachette for delivering a manuscript that claims is an appropriation of a public-domain work.

Just let that kick around in your brain for a minute: A New York publisher is suing a guy who took a Jane Austen classic, threw in a few set pieces from The Walking Dead, re-packaged it for a zombie-hungry market, and made a metric fuck-ton of money off of it, for writing a book that was a knock-off of a public domain work…like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Hold on a minute…KandP-seriously

[Read more…] about Just Not Feeling It: The Lack of Sympathy for Seth Grahame-Smith

Walk the Walk: Actions over Prayer in Light of the Orlando 49

trinity_churchYou’ve probably seen on my Instagram images of Trinity Episcopal Church. Really nice place. Good people there. Trinity are located in Old Town Manassas, headed up by Stuart Schadt and Vinnie Lainson. Apart from sharing the occasional photo, I tend to be tight-lipped about my church, my faith, and my walk with Christ.  I have a lot of reasons why. If you are ever curious about it, and you have some time, I can tell you all about it; but my faith is a personal journey…

…and with the recent events in Orlando, I feel like that journey is being tested.

The trend of “thoughts and prayers” in light of tragedy, once upon a time, was a beautiful thing. I can remember regarding it as a beautiful way of solidarity online. However, when the same people condemning marriage equality and gay rights now extend “thoughts and prayers.” the sincerity was gone. No, as a Christian, I shouldn’t be passing judgment, but it was hard to take a high road when one politician who tweeted “Jesus wept.” on the upholding of marriage equality suddenly is offering “thoughts and prayers” the day after Orlando.

I am done with “thoughts and prayers.” I want action. I want change. And with so many religious leaders offering “thoughts and prayers” I had to wonder if there was anything more beyond that.

Then I got an email from Trinity Episcopal today: [Read more…] about Walk the Walk: Actions over Prayer in Light of the Orlando 49

Overwatch: A Heartbreaking Adventure of Heroes

A few weeks ago, Blizzard Entertainment released Overwatch, a new game that I’ve been seeing gamer friends repeatedly posting their anticipation over and over again in my social media feeds. The artwork online and preview videos on YouTube promised striking anime inspiration in its character design, a world of wild and wicket combat tactics, and a wide array of maps based on real-life locations. Pretty cool, I thought.

Then I watched this short film…

Now I wanted to play this game.

If you skipped by the animated short, what are you doing?! It’s only six minutes and so worth it! But if you can’t watch the short film, let me bring you up to speed… [Read more…] about Overwatch: A Heartbreaking Adventure of Heroes