Christopher Meeks's Blog
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Nov.30.2012
Finding Your Voice
by Christopher Meeks
Developing a voice in your writing is a notion that passes over me every now and then like the “thung” sound of an error message on my computer. “I should develop a voice,” I think. “My voice is off today,” I think. “Maybe I should work on that voice thing,”...
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Oct.20.2012
On this day in October, this page of mine on Red Room reached 250,000 views around 12:30 p.m. I predicted in September that I'd hit this milestone in October. To arrive here has my head spinning. Did my ten closest friends come here a hundred times a day every day? That’s doubtful.
Rather, I have...
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Oct.08.2012
In the eighties, I was selling tile in Woodland Hills, and I was writing short stories that I showed few people. I felt naked in the stories. I knew they were good but they needed more of something. I didn’t know what “more” was, so I took a huge leap. I joined a graduate writing program at USC.
My...
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Oct.05.2012
By far the best movie theatre of my youth was the Cooper Theatre near Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was an orange circular building with a Cinerama screen. Seating was by reservation, and programs came as hardback books. The films were major events and would play for many months.
My grandmother loved...
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Sep.20.2012
Kirkus Reviews asked me out of the blue if I'd like to write about "How I Did It"--about how I achieved a level of success as an independent publisher. Considering that I've been knocking on Kirkus's door for years to have a book reviewed there, this was a nice surprise. Here's what I wrote for...
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Aug.25.2012
As I wrote a few weeks ago, The Fiction Writer’s Handbook by writer and master teacher Shelly Lowenkopf will be published in November. As the publisher, I remain in awe of Lowenkopf’s approach to offering the tools and concepts that great fiction writers use.
Yes, the step-by-step methods that some...
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Aug.15.2012
A Conversation with an Early Adapter of Self-Publishing Gone Mainstream
Boyd Morrison fits no easy stereotypes for a novelist. With a BS degree in mechanical engineering from Rice University, he first worked for Lockheed and NASA on a space station and other projects. He returned to grad school to...
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Aug.14.2012
Today I passed 200,000 page views here on Red Room. FedEx showed up with balloons and a gift basket of apples and one of the first iPhone 5's, compliments from Red Room Management. A marching band came up the street. I gave a speech to a gathering crowd how Red Room is the place to be.
Okay, none...
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Jul.26.2012
The Fiction Writer’s Handbook by writer and master teacher Shelly Lowenkopf will soon be going out to reviewers and will be published in November. As writer Christopher Moore explains in the foreword, when he first had a workshop with Lowenkopf, Moore thought, “The man is a lunatic.” Then Moore...
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Jun.20.2012
As I mentioned in my piece “The Accidental Publisher,” I’ve started slowly publishing other people’s books at White Whisker Books. For now, I’ve started with colleagues who have been published and are finding the playing field of publishing has changed for them. Either their agents have left the...
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Jun.11.2012
Last year, I wrote a piece called “My Realities—How to Market Your Book or Watch It Die.” I ended the piece explaining what I was about to do with three books, and now I can tell you what I’ve learned from it.
First, perception is so much about where you stand. If you’re a new writer wanting to be...
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May.12.2012
I'm surprised, I'm delighted, and I don't know how else to explain this, so I'm giving you the press release:
Los Angeles, May 12, 2012
Call him as focused as his physicist. Deep into his next novel, Christopher Meeks didn’t realize his book Love At Absolute Zero was a finalist in ForeWord Reviews...
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May.05.2012
I awoke this morning to NPR’s Scott Simon offering a scream—and saying that one of four versions of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” sold for $120 million on Wednesday in a Sotheby’s auction. He then went onto report something else that gets people screaming: the fact tonight is a supermoon. There are...
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Apr.29.2012
I saw Bruce Springsteen and his larger-than-ever E Street Band on Friday, and to say it was a religious experience is not much of an exaggeration. His concerts over the years have evolved into something akin to a secular humanist revival meeting. How “secular” they are can be argued as some...
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Apr.25.2012
The U.S. government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2010, there were 145,900 writers and authors in America, and that the median income was $55,420 per year, or almost $27 per hour. The bureau predicted that in the next decade 9,500 new writers and authors will be added to the list.
Just...
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'Love At Absolute Zero' is a gift--and one of the many that continue to emerge from the pen and mind and brilliant trait for finding the humor in life that makes him so genuinely fine a writer.”
—Critic Grady Harp, Top-Ten Amazon reviewer
About Christopher
Christopher Meeks writes short fiction and novels. His book of short stories, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea earned great reviews including the Los Angeles Times ("poignant and wise") and a blurb in Entertainment Weekly that said, "A...
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