Saturday 22 August 2015

BOOK PROMOTION & AUTHOR INTERVIEW - WORMHOLES BY DENNIS MEREDITH

Title: Wormholes
Author: Dennis Meredith
Release Date: 12th September 2013

BLURB from Goodreads
Something is devouring Earth. . . 
A suburban house in Oklahoma vanishes into a roaring abyss. A supertanker at sea suffers a fiery destruction. A blast in China drills a gigantic cavern into a mountainside. A severed arm plummets from the sky in Missouri. 

Could these catastrophes possibly be related? Intrepid geologist Dacey Livingstone is nearly killed by her first attempt to plumb the mystery-a perilous descent into a house-swallowing sinkhole. Still determined, she joins with eccentric physicist Gerald Meier in a quest that takes them from the ocean's depths to interstellar space. 
What are these exotic "wormholes" that threaten Earth? Can their secrets be discovered, their power even harnessed? Or will they spawn a celestial monster that will annihilate the planet?


PURCHASE LINKS


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
What is your name, where were you born and where do you live now?
I’m Dennis Meredith, born in Galveston, Texas, and my wife Joni and I live in Purlear, North Carolina, in a log cabin deep in the North Carolina mountains. We live in the middle of nature, encountering deer, raccoons, hummingbirds, and even an occasional bear. It’s a great place to write, without the intrusion of the distractions of civilization.

Did you always want to be a writer?

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!

What is the name of your latest book, and if you had to summarise it in less than 20 words what would you say?
My latest book is The Cerulean’s Secret [www.CeruleansSecret.com]
Summary: Somebody has stolen the most beautiful cat in history!

Who is your publisher? or do you self publish?

We started our own publishing company, Glyphus LLC, to produce my novels, although we’ll use commercial publishers for my nonfiction books.

Do you have plans for a new book?

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.

What can we expect from you in the future?  ie More books of the same genre? Books of a different genre?
I will continue writing speculative fiction—that is, drawing on real science, both current and future, to tell stories that make people think about the impact of science and technology. For example, after The Happy Chip, my next book is The Neuromorphs (see www.TheNeuromorphs.com for 
the first chapters), about the coming impact of artificially intelligent robots. The latest research on neuromorphic computing and “deep learning,” will enable such machines, and there is serious debate and concern about how they will affect the human species.

Where do you get your book plot ideas from? What/Who is your inspiration?

My plot ideas usually pop into my head as a single question. 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!

Do you have a certain routine you have for writing? ie You listen to music, sit in a certain chair?
I sit in a recliner in the basement of our log cabin, surrounded by four large computer monitors. It looks like a guy piloting a space ship.

Do you gift books to readers to do reviews?
Yes

Do you read all the reviews of your book/books?

Yes

What was the toughest/best review you have ever had?

The best was a reviewer who wrote that she wished she could give The Cerulean’s Secret more than five stars!

Would you ever ask a reviewer to change their review if it was not all positive about your book/books?
No, never. While negative reviews are always like an arrow to a writer’s heart, I find that they make me think harder about the book I wrote, and how I can better write books that readers will enjoy.

Do you choose a title first, or write the book then choose the title?
The title always seems to come first.

Do you decide on character traits (ie shy, quiet, tomboy girl) before writing the whole book or as you go along?
My characters start out with basic traits, but as I write, they become richer and deeper as they go through the “experiences” in the book.

Do you basic plot/plan for your book, before you actually begin writing it out? Or do you let the writing flow and see where it takes the story?
I generally have the premise and ending in mind as I write, and I fill in plot twists as I, go along. But many times the plot yields a surprise ending, even for me the author!

Have you ever suffered from a "writer's block"? What did you do to get past the "block"?

No. I seem to always have so much to say that it just spills out. And I’ve learned that if I’m not sure what to write, I just “beat the story out of the keyboard.” 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.

Have you ever based characters on people you know or based events on things that have happened to you?
Yes, many of my characters are pieced together from people I’ve known. And many event in the book arise from my own experiences. For example, or my novel Solomon’s Freedom [www.SolomonsFreedom.com], my wife and I spent several weeks hanging out (pun intended) with chimpanzees at the Ohio State University primate intelligence research laboratory. These amazing animals helped bring Solomon and the other chimps in the novel to life.

Are there any hidden messages or morals contained in your books? (Morals as in like Aesops Fables type of "The moral of this story is..")
My interests have always been in the impact of science and technology on people.

What are you currently reading?
This may sound weird, but I’m going back and reading my first novels. It’s not an ego thing; I want to look back with some perspective on what I’ve written, and how I might have written it better. Sometimes I’m pleased at what I’ve written; sometimes frustrated.

Did you have a favourite author as a child?
I’m an old-school guy, who grew up reading the greats, like Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, and Frank Herbert. Their novels told great stories with great characters, and offered highly insightful previews of the impact of science on society.

Is there anything in your book/books you would change now if you could and what would it be?
Actually, I’m planning to go back and redraft The Rainbow Virus to be more dynamic and with less irrelevant subplots.  I can do that because it’s easy to rewrite an ebook.

What piece of advice would you give to a new writer?
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.


Where can readers follow you?

On my Facebook fan page and web site.



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