Christopher Meeks's Blog
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Sep.17.2009
As you may know, a few independent literary authors and I formed a book collective called Backword Books. It's not a publishing company but a way for us to gather our marketing talents together and see if we can get the word out about our books. One of the members noticed that a lot of book...
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Sep.12.2009
"Sometimes the magic works," said the theatre impresario in Shakespeare in Love. As much as I muse on the subject of marketing in this blog, I can't always explain things. I can't explain my ranking today.
Probably the worst habit many writers have is checking sales rankings on Amazon....
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Sep.11.2009
Today's writer is both creator of a product and a marketer. I do not like to think of my books as "product" any more than I would think of my children as items for consumption. The angst, love, hope, and insight I put into books and with my kids demand another category. Something...
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Sep.07.2009
Did it. Here on Labor Day I made it to the end of my novel, nearly two years in the making. A mystery, Ten Days to a Bad Habit begins after a well-meaning man does something he's never done in his life. While at a convention in Las Vegas, he sleeps with someone other than his wife. When he wakes...
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Sep.01.2009
LAS VEGAS: LOVE AND HATE
Las Vegas used to be easy to hate. When I passed through a few times in college, I sensed what the place was exactly: cheap eats at bland buffets, Midwesterners blowing too much money in smoky casinos, and drunks everywhere. Elegant meant funky Egyptianesque costumes on...
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Aug.31.2009
We have six pets at this point -- four cats and two dogs. Each came to us under special circumstances, so it's not like we're collectors of living things. We're not becoming the kind of people who wear t-shirts with our pets' photos or drool and chatter about canned pet food versus kibbles....
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Aug.21.2009
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A few years ago when I first used Lulu.com to publish and distribute my first book, a collection of short stories called The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea, I happened to go into the Barnes and Noble store in Union Square in New York City and found my book for sale there. I was ecstatic. I later...
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Aug.12.2009
My panel proposal for this topic has been accepted at the country's largest gathering of creative writers, the AWP Convention, which will be held in Denver in April. The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) includes individual writers and most graduate and undergraduate creative...
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Aug.08.2009
While I like to think of myself as adept when it comes to relationships, a handful of former girlfriends and an ex-wife have shown me I may as well be a toll taker for the Bridge of Sighs. That hasn't stopped me from writing stories about love, and my male characters, like me, tend not to see...
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Aug.05.2009
"Look at this," my sister-in-law Annie said, showing me her Kindle, the $299 wireless reading device from Amazon. It looked like a giant cell phone with a big readable screen. "I don't need to sync it up with a computer," she said, "because it connects to Amazon.com. I...
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Jul.28.2009
Many novelists I know are a bit like Rodney Dangerfield, feeling like they get no respect. Yet after diving into publishing three years ago. I remain optimistic. Before I explain why, let me remind you of the state of publishing: book advances continue to diminish; imprints are disappearing; red...
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Jul.17.2009
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Yesterday happened to be the 40th anniversary of the lift-off of Apollo 11, which led Neil Armstrong, who had flown 78 combat missions over Korea as a Navy fighter pilot, to take the first steps on the moon. The crew of three--Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins--blasted off from Cape...
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Jul.16.2009
My stepfather continues to live, but his body is starting to shut down. He's been moved today to a home-like hospice setting. The antibiotics have been stopped, and because he can't swallow, he has an IV for water and nutrition. Even if the pneumonia could be stopped, too much else is failing. He...
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Jul.14.2009
One hundred and twenty-eight years ago today, New Mexico sheriff Pat Garrett, from Lincoln County, shot and killed William H. Bonney alias Billy the Kid, after Bonney's escape from jail. On this same day, another death, one that means more to me, may happen. Today may be the day my stepfather...
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Jul.10.2009
After William F. Buckley and his wife had died within the same year, their son, the humorist Christopher Buckley, had a hard time dealing with the loss, and he wrote, "One realization does dawn upon the death of the second parent, namely that you've now moved into the green room to the River...
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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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