February 20

Guest Blog & Podcast: Tee Morris & Pip Ballantine

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As we continue the Write by the Rails Endless Possibilities blog tour, I wanted to share something with all of you. Below is the very first podcast that Stacia or I ever did, and we did it with some friends and fellow WBTR members. Tee Morris & Pip Ballantine are incredible authors and marketers, and like us, they collaborate on their writing. Apparently, this is an anomaly, as most couples couldn’t imagine writing together without a Tell Tale Heart moment as the result.

It turns out we have very different approaches to writing, editing, marketing, and more. Take a listen to the podcast below. Would you ever write with your significant other?

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(Originally published on 23 July 2013 at www.theshareddesk.com)

TSD-back2back_KellyHoly cow! Two in two weeks?! The deuce, you say! We do say! And it’s a special Shared Desk as we’ve recorded our panel at the Write by the Rails meeting that included a panel discussion with couples that collaborated on their writings. Joined by local authors Nick and Stacia Kelly, Tee and Pip share stories and approaches on how they make a collaboration work and also share advice on how to keep collaborations successful.

 

 Episode #24: Collaborating Couples (with Nick and Stacia Kelly) Hide Player | Play in Popup | Download
00:00 — Introduction

Flying solo in the opening…
Throwing in a special episode without making it special…
Hooking up with Nick and Stacia Kelly (and yeah, Tee trips up on her name a bit in the introduction…)
Quick Announcement — Tee & Pip will be working the York County Library on JULY 30!!!
Teasing the next special guest for The Shared Desk…
2:47 — Collaborating Couples (with Nick & Stacia Kelly)
Recording LIVE from the Write by the Rails writing group here in Manassas, VA
Sadly, we can’t enact the “Bar Panel” rule here…
Who’s on the panel tonight?
Nick Kelly, Science Fiction author (introducing his first book this month)
Stacia Kelly, fiction and non-fiction author
..and us.
What’s the collaboration process between us?
Stacia got an idea, but wanted to write with her husband, Nick.
Nick works more with the nitty-gritty, not so well on the romance…
Nic and Stacia discover their differences in how they write.
The truth of successful collaboration, and how marrying your writing partner is not the sure-fire solution to a great process.
Pip and Tee talk a bit about Discovery Writing.
When you do the open idea sessions, all four of us need to write it down!
Pip & Tee flinch over the “Red Pen” experience with Harper Voyager.
How does collaboration go with people outside the writing experience?
Editorial pains
Working with cover artists
Okay, Tee could get behind the “Hot Tub” sessions….
Working on the covers of Kindred & Wings and Dawn’s Early Light…
When Collaborations go wrong…
Stacia stands alone as the writer amongst the experts. Let the madness commence!
Tee finally reveals the story behind his first story…and it is as epic as the story itself….
Pip’s “bad experience” was actually not that bad.
Facing the worst-case scenario as a married couple.
The panel goes deep into having an Exit Plan and the importance of communication.
Mad props to Delilah S. Dawson for coming through…
Unexpected Collaborations
Working with book bloggers on blog tours
Collaborating with other authors in your worlds
Spending some quality time on Jack Mangan and his influence on The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences….
What you need for a solid collaboration — Trust, Communications, and an Editorial Timeline
40:45 — Questions from the Audience

How do you divide responsibilities between yourselves?
Pip and Tee evolve their collaborative process from when they went from a podcast-for-pay to a series from Harper Voyager and Ace.
Pip & Tee’s biggest argument
Stacia makes Nick put on a “special suit” for working out fight scenes.
Nick breaks down their writing process using a musical analogy.
How did Pip and Tee first meet?
Meeting online
Everybody wanted to collaborate with Tee because…
The open honesty from New Zealand
Do you all do your own editing?
Why hiring an editor is so important.
Stacia’s editing resource — http://autocrit.com
But you should still edit your own drafts before going to an editor.
When is the editing done?
The little discoveries when you go deep into editing
What an editor should never say to a writer…
How many Beta Readers do you have?
What to expect from Beta Readers
What are you doing when you’re not writing?
It’s a wide field of expertise.
Tee’s suggestion: A social media panel for writers (with a quick tangent on John Scalzi)
A quick discussion on Hootsuite and other strategies in social media
….and that’s all from us here at Write By the Rails!

 

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Tee and Pip’s fantastic steampunk series, The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences returns strong on March 25, 2014 with the third book in the series, “Dawn’s Early Light.” It’s available now for pre-order over on Amazon. Enjoy!

One love,
nK


Tags

@nick_kelly, @StaciaKelly, collaboration, kindle, Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, Nick Kelly, nK, Pip Ballantine, podcast, Tee Morris, The Shared Desk, Write by the Rails, Writing


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