Cover to Cover #452: Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris

Discussion continues on creating, publishing and marketing for authors marketing their own works themselves.

Interview: This week, Mike and Mike chat with Tee Morris and Pip Ballantine about their new collaborative novel, Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel, sort of a steampunk flavored adventure in the fashion of “The Avengers” or “The X-Files”.

Tee and Pip talk about opening up their universe to other authors to create stories for, as well as their own collaborative writing and editing process working on this novel and the sequel.

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Michael R. Mennenga: Back with more Dragon Page “Cover to Cover”, we have guests.

Michael Stackpole: Yes, we do.

MRM: Tee Morris is a name that you may know from ages ago on this show. He hasn’t been on for a while, but him and Pip Balantine have joined us they got a new book out it’s called Phoenix Rising… and the long title. Actually I’ll let Tee tell us the long title. Welcome to Show Tee.

Tee Morris: Well hi guys it’s great… it is very, it’s really surreal being back. I mean, I was the guest who wouldn’t go away, and then I went away. So it’s nice to be back. It’s really nice to be back, and this time I’m not alone. I have the ever so lovely Pip Ballantine with me.

Pip Ballantine: Hi guys!

Tee: And the full title of the book is called Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel. It is a steampunk romp set in Victorian London, and we had an absolute blast writing it.

MRM: Awesome.

Tee: It’s coming up from Harper Voyager, and it’s been a real delight working with Harper and currently we’re wrapping up the sequel to Phoenix Rising which is called Of Cogs and Corsets
(A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel).

MS: Very cool. Very cool.

MRM: So tell us a little bit about it. What’s going on in this, you said it was steampunky
so I’m assuming there’s all kinds of really cool things in the cool world.

Pip: We try.

Tee: Yeah, we do try. I mean, the way I like to describe it to people is if you remember, if you remember the days of John Steed in Emma Peel in the 1960s Avengers, well, basically steampunk that and you’ve got the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences.

Pip: If you don’t remember that, then steampunk X-Files!

Tee: Or the steampunk X-Files. We throw in a dash of X-Files for fun.

In a nutshell, what happens is that the book opens with a rescue of the Ministry’s archivist Wellington Books. And the mission goes a little, goes a little more haywire than was originally planned for. So when Eliza Braun brings Wellington Books back to the Ministry, they have to pull off some disciplinary action, so they demote Eliza to work in the archives with Wellington. And as they are working in the archives together, they come across a room full of unexplained unsolved cases, and one of them involves Eliza’s former partner. And that’s where the story takes off.

They start investigating this dead case on their own. And Wellington is very reluctant about it because he’s all about the rules, and Eliza being the field agent that she is from New Zealand, not caring about the rules, she drags him, kicking his screaming into the fray.

And there are carriage chases, there are explosions…

Pip: There’s snarky banter…

Tee: There’s a lot of snarky banter. And we even thrown a pub brawl for kicks. So pretty much just your average, your average night out in Arizona. You know what I’m saying?

[laughter]

Tee: And yeah, we did. We had a blast writing it.

The thing I would describe about our steampunk though is that we try to make our steampunk make sense. And what I mean by that is, we don’t gloss it over where everyone’s just wearing goggles because it’s in fashion. We actually use the goggles for practical reasons. We actually have our inventions take a part in the story.

The debate about steampunk, what is steampunk? For us, it’s the technology of today back in the 19th century. So we’re having them use it. It doesn’t become just sort of a setting. You don’t just want to find a difference engine, actually using the difference engine. They’re actually using whatever gadget we’re throwing at them.

MS: Oh, very cool. Now you’ve got the the subtitle — you said of both this book and the sequel — the subtitle is “A Ministry of Occurrences”, or “Peculiar Occurrences”. See, Michael keeps taking that page away from me, so I can’t see.

[ laughter]

MS: “The Ministry of the Peculiar Occurrences Novel”, so have you guys done short stories and
other work? Otherwise why would you label it as, you know, a novel?

Pip: We are doing a podcast short story collection as well that’s under that same umbrella. We also have some ideas for other spinoff novels, like a YA title and another spinoff novel that also might come under the same “Ministry of Peculiar Occurences” title. Branding. It’s all about branding!

MRM: And your fingers in lots of different areas, of course.

Tee: Yeah, exactly. And this was the idea from the start, was that we would make this a series.
We would make it some type of some type of series that we could go back to. And then if we did short stories, we could say it’s a “Ministry of Peculiar Occurences” anthology, a “Ministry of Peculiar Occurences” graphic novel. Whatever we could go back to. And it’s so far, it’s been working on great.

We’ve not only had some terrific advanced reader response to the novel, but we’ve been really proud that the anthology “Tales from the Artchives” — or the podthology, if you want to call it a podcast anthology — “Tales from the Artchives”, it’s been running on iTunes for the past month now. And actually, we’re coming up on two months, we’re coming up on two months on iTunes. And we’re still, we’re still managing to hang in the top four of “new and notable”…

Pip: Hanging on Scott Sigler,…

Tee: Yeah, we’re hanging on Scott like a little tick.

[ laughter ]

Pip: Yeah, on the massive back of Scott Sigler.

Tee: Actually reminds me of the days when Scott, Hutch, and myself were vying for the number one slots. It’s like one day Scott, “The Starter” is number one, or they’re new and noteworthy. And then “Tails of the Archives” is new and noteworthy. And then some other podcast comes along and knocks us both out.

But it really has been a lot of fun, though, because we opened up our universe to other authors.

Pip: We have some great people. like Nathan Lowell wrote us a great steampunk story, set in Africa, and we’re getting Phil Rossi to write some… set in America, I think that one is? And Jack Mangan.

Tee: Jack Mangan, he’s written to something also, set in America, and then we had PC Haring take us to South America for his steampunk. So they’re really capturing the international feel of steampunk. It’s not just stuff set in Victorian London, even though our novel is set primarily in the city proper. And so it’s been a — it really has been a joy working with other writers and also working with Harper Voyager in putting this new series together.

MS: So talk a little bit about the whole collaborative process between two of you and then kind of expand it on how do you work with you?

Pip: I have a big stick. And I whenever I disagree with something I hit Tee in the head with it. And I find that works very well.

Tee: Which is why I liked it better when she was living in New Zealand.

[ laughter ]

Tee: The funny thing about the collaborative process between me and Pip is that our productivity
actually went down when she came here to the United States.

Pip: Because of that lovely date line thing, I would be writing in New Zealand and I would go
to bed and Tee what take over and while I was asleep, he’d be writing… and it was amazing! You can actually squeeze a lot out of 24 hours if you do it that way.

Tee: And then when she got here, it was like, wait a minute, we’re sleeping at the same time now.
Oh crap, and so on. We’ve had to adjust.

Now I will say though, the editorial and the brainstorming process, though, it’s been a lot easier with Pip being here. The upside of the writing aspect of it was, it was 24 hours of solid writing. The downside of that… and we were doing this via Skype… We both had MacBooks, so we’re doing the video chat. But the downside was that due to the time difference, if I was getting up for the day, Pip was heading to bed. So we had roughly an hour. We had a window of one hour in my morning, and the one hour in my night where we could swap ideas.

Pip: It made the editing quite… there was so much more editing to do because we had to sort of
seam at all together rather than being able to talk about, you know, what did you write in this chapter and what am I going to write in the next chapter? So it’s a tad plus as a minuses.

Tee: But as far as the collaborative process in our writing styles, Pip and I are well not being very compatible. And what was also nice was that we could… and this is one of the advantages of working with a talented co-writer, is that you sit down and you edit your partner’s stuff and then the partner edits your stuff and you trade off. And then that’s when the real meshing of the styles happened.

I mean, when I write by myself, I have an entirely different style than the way Pipp writes when she’s on her own. I’m currently reading Geist, and I’m like, “This isn’t the same person that I work with.” But…

Pip: That’s because when we started off, when we started writing, our styles were completely differently, and along the way some weird, mongrel…

Tee: Mind meld! (laughs)

Pip: (laughs) Mind meld strangeness happened and we managed to find some middle ground… with the help of the stick

Tee: With the help of the stick. Yeah, the big stick is always a big help!

MRM: Well, now we do want to cover a little bit on Pip too here because Pip, you have a new book coming out as well

Pip: Yes, looking beyond The Ministry, I’ve got Spectyr, which is the second book that I have with Ace coming out at the end of June. I originally did a two book deal with Ace which was going to be Geist and Spectyr, and then after Geist came out they came back to me for another two books. So it’s going to be four books in total. So yeah, poor me. (chuckles)

Yeah, Tee was really really very sorry for me…

Tee: Actually what it was funny though I think, I think they were trying to play on Pips good nature for being from New Zealand and very laid back because the [editor] came back and said, “So we want two more books…Same price, right?”

Pip: Yeah, that’s my agent started laughing. It was sweet.

MRM: Well, for those of our listeners that aren’t aware of this series, give us a little rundown. What is this book about?

Pip: Well, Geist is more high fantasy, epic fantasy than Ministry. It has some steampunk qualities, but it’s basically set in a world in which the supernatural is not a maybe, it is a definitely. People know that ghosts — for want of a better word — come through, can inhabit your granny and make her head spin around 360 degrees. These things are just a given.

So they have an order of clerics, well… they used to be clerics, they’re not religious anymore, but they work together in pairs, there’s a sensitive and an active, and they basically go around trying to clear up these intrusions of the supernatural.

And it’s the story of a sorcerer who’s an older, she’s probably in a late 30s, she’s an active, and she gets paired up with a young rookie and they get sent off to, you know, it’s the usual, a simple case at the edge of the empire off you go, And oh my goodness, they get there and they discover it’s so much more. So it’s sort of a steampunkish, buddy cop, high fantasy…

Tee: With naughty bits. She has naughty bits in there.

Pip: No!

Tee: The naughty bits are quite naughty and they’re quite sultry. And it’s quite nice.

[LAUGHTER]

Pip: (laughing) It’s not erotica!

[LAUGHTER]

MRM: Well, that’s fantastic. It sounds like you guys are really kicking the tires and lighting the fires, so to speak and…

Tee: Yeah, I mean the the great thing about the about Phoenix Rising is we are we are very fortunate. We are very fortunate and that we already have international sales on the line.

Pip: Yeah, forgot about that.

Tee: Yeah, we in fact with what the book is coming out roughly… sometimes that all we know is that it’s sometime next week. One part of Amazon says it’s coming out on the 26th, and another part says it’s coming out May first, whenever it comes out. Then it comes out in the United States, and then on June 1st, it hits Australia and New Zealand markets.

Pip: And then we’ve got Germany and Russia, but we don’t quite show when they’re coming out.

Tee: So pretty much the books paid for. The advance is paid for and we’re thrilled about that.

Pip: But still keep buying books! (laughs)

Tee: Oh yeah, we have a saying over at Harper Voyager, “buy as many books as you want, don’t worry, we’ll make more!”

So yeah, we’ve got some events coming up, we’re actually going to our first steampunk convention. We’re going to the Steampunk World’s Fair in–

Pip: Somerset, New Jersey.

Tee: Somerset, New Jersey. And that is the 21st to the 23rd.

And then the 27th through the 30th, we’re going back to the old haunt. We’re going back to Balticon.

Pip: Where I am the new media guest of honor!

Tee: Pip is the new media guest of honor…

Pip: And he will be carrying my bags…

Tee: Which is no different than any other con we’ve been to!

(laughing)

Tee: And then we also have, we also have WorldCon. I don’t know if I’ll be seeing you guys at WorldCon, but that’s in Reno. And then after that, we’re going to hit FENcon in Dallas, Texas, and then we’re gonna probably also hit Archon in St. Louis, Missouri.

MRM: Awesome, awesome. Plenty of places to get out and see, sounds like! That’s fantastic!

Pip: Oh, and San Francisco! We’re going to be in San Francisco doing a signing at the end of the month.

Tee: Yeah, yeah, on April 30th, we’re going to be at Borderland Books. It’s a gorgeous bookstore.

I don’t know if you guys have ever gotten out there, but it’s just a beautiful, lovely little indie store. So, support your indie store, come on out and come out and support us. We’ll be there from 3 to 5pm on April 30th.

And if your curious as to where we’re going to have our first Virginia signing, because that’s where we’re best we’re based out of, we’re going back to where we shot the Phoenix Rising book trailer. We’re going to Stanton, Virginia again, another indie bookstore called Book Works.

And I bring this up because if you’ve not seen it, you can go to YouTube and find the steampunk book trailer.

Pip: And see Tee run like Dick Van Dyke.

Tee: I was channeling my inner Dick van Dyke. I’m sure what happened there, but it’s funny when we put together the book trailer, people were saying, “When did you start editing in green screen?”

And I said, “What are you talking about?” And they said, “These sets, they’re gorgeous, “but they’re virtual, right?” It was all shot in downtown Stanton, Virginia. And it was perfect for what we wanted.

So you can check that out on YouTube, and you can check it out on our website at Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences dot com.

MRM: Wow, that is awesome.

And I tell you what, we’re completely out of time, but we thank you so much for being with us today!

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Catch them at the Steampunk World’s Fair in Somerset NJ, Balticon, Worldcon in Reno, and a host of other places.

Link: The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences
Link: Phillipa Ballantine
Link: Tee Morris

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