Ask the Author: Dennis Meredith
Answered Questions (10)
Dennis Meredith
Aliza, We are indie publishers, my husband Dennis Meredith is the author, I Joanne Meredith do the marketing for our company. I keep lists of bloggers which I share, my lists are YA and SciFi, They are both very long, too long to post here. If you would find them useful send me an email at editor@glyphus.com and I will send them to you.
There are lots of bloggers lists online, I go through my lists about once a year to update them. I also go through the online lists to see if I can find new bloggers not on my lists. I also offer my lists on my Goodreads Book Club threads and then ask if any bloggers would like me to add them to my lists. I hope this was helpful.
There are lots of bloggers lists online, I go through my lists about once a year to update them. I also go through the online lists to see if I can find new bloggers not on my lists. I also offer my lists on my Goodreads Book Club threads and then ask if any bloggers would like me to add them to my lists. I hope this was helpful.
Dennis Meredith
Where my ideas come from. The brain is such an incredibly complex organ, and it just fascinates me that odd notions just seem to pop up from nowhere. It would be a fun plot for a book if it were discovered that there is some otherworldly or other-dimensional extension of each person's brain to some larger realm of super-intelligence that feeds into the brain.
Dennis Meredith
Being able to invent a rich, engaging story and characters out of my head that people will enjoy reading.
Dennis Meredith
My plot ideas usually pop into my head as a single question that keeps nagging me until I write a novel to answer it. For example, The Cerulean’s Secret began as the question “What if there was a blue cat?” And my first novel, The Rainbow Virus, began as a question “What if there was a virus that turned people all different colors?” I understand such a single-sentence inspirational idea is not unusual. For example, the story I’ve read about the origin of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was that Tolkien was grading English papers one day, and a single sentence popped into his head. “In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.” And the rest is literary history!
Dennis Meredith
Fortunately, I don't suffer writer's block. I seem to always have so much to say that it just spills out. But I’ve learned that if I’m not sure what to write, I just “beat the story out of the keyboard.” That is, just start writing, and ultimately you'll shape the text into what you want. The most important lesson I’ve learned about avoiding writer’s block is to remember that “Writing is rewriting.” The first draft is always tentative.
Dennis Meredith
Write for the love of writing. And keep writing and trying to improve your writing, no matter what. And play the long game. That is, don’t assume that your first book will make your reputation, or even the fifth. You might have to write a dozen books to establish your brand, and even then you might not make it big. But if you write books that you are proud of, and that your readers enjoy—no matter how small the audience—you’ve fulfilled yourself as a writer. Finally, explore both traditional and self-publishing, and learn marketing skills. You’ll need them regardless of how your works are produced.
Dennis Meredith
My next novel is The Happy Chip [www.TheHappyChip.com], about a company called NeoHappy, Inc., which markets a sophisticated nanoelectronic chip that, when implanted, enables people to monitor the hormones that measure their own happiness with the people and products in their lives. At first, millions of people find the Happy Chip a pathway to more pleasurable choices. But the company begins to disseminate control chips that manipulate people’s emotions, and can even assassinate them by remote control. The protagonist is science writer Andy Davis, who is hired to co-author the biography of the company’s genius founder, Marty Fallon. What starts out as a dream assignment for him transforms into a nightmare that threatens to subjugate not just Andy and his family, but the world.
Dennis Meredith
My interests have always been in the impact of science and technology on people, and my next book, The Happy Chip [www.TheHappyChip.com] reflects that interest. We're publishing it early next year. It explores the consequences of corporations' collecting more and more personal data on people, and the point at which knowledge becomes control. It's about a corporation, NeoHappy, Inc., that develops a nanochip injected into the body that measures people's hormone levels to quantify how much they like a person or product. But the corporation has a motive beyond giving people knowledge to help them lead more fulfilling lives. NeoHappy secretly creates a control chip, and then... (well, you'll just have to read the book!)
Dennis Meredith
Thanks so much, Darlene, for the kind words! Yes, I always wanted to write, even in high school. And I always loved science and science fiction. As I recall, my first short story was about an alien pilot, looking desperately for a planet with an evolved civilization. I built the suspense, but didn't tell the reader why he was so incredibly desperate. It turned out, the bathroom on his ship had broken, and he had to go really, really badly!
Dennis Meredith
The Cerulean's Secret had its origins thirty years ago, when an oddball question popped into my head: What if there were a blue cat?
I suspect that notion arose because, at the time, as head of the Caltech news bureau, I was witnessing the beginning of the genomic engineering revolution. Caltech biologist Leroy Hood and his colleagues were inventing the first "gene machines:" the DNA sequencer, DNA synthesizer, protein sequenator, and protein synthesizer. I believed that these machines would ultimately spawn an extraordinary technology for manipulating life.
As the technology evolved, so did the story of my imaginary blue cat. I began crafting the novel some two decades ago, as genomic science fiction became science fact. And as with all my novels, I drew on that science fact to inspire my fictional adventure, to try to make it as realistic as possible.
Being a science writer, I aim in my novels to extrapolate my stories from real science, which is sometimes even wilder than any science fiction. The Cerulean’s Secret was just such a novel, because as I wrote it over many years, many of the devices I envisioned for 2050—from robot snakes, to virtual-reality glasses, to quantum computers—kept showing up as real-life technology.
And, although I wanted to tell an exciting story, I also wanted to explore the critical moral and ethical issues raised by our growing ability to genetically engineer life.
I suspect that notion arose because, at the time, as head of the Caltech news bureau, I was witnessing the beginning of the genomic engineering revolution. Caltech biologist Leroy Hood and his colleagues were inventing the first "gene machines:" the DNA sequencer, DNA synthesizer, protein sequenator, and protein synthesizer. I believed that these machines would ultimately spawn an extraordinary technology for manipulating life.
As the technology evolved, so did the story of my imaginary blue cat. I began crafting the novel some two decades ago, as genomic science fiction became science fact. And as with all my novels, I drew on that science fact to inspire my fictional adventure, to try to make it as realistic as possible.
Being a science writer, I aim in my novels to extrapolate my stories from real science, which is sometimes even wilder than any science fiction. The Cerulean’s Secret was just such a novel, because as I wrote it over many years, many of the devices I envisioned for 2050—from robot snakes, to virtual-reality glasses, to quantum computers—kept showing up as real-life technology.
And, although I wanted to tell an exciting story, I also wanted to explore the critical moral and ethical issues raised by our growing ability to genetically engineer life.
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