Are you considering joining the Noble Pen?  Wonderful!  This is a little guide to how we run our meetings and what you can expect from us if you decide to attend.

Noble Pen meetings are held every Thursday, except during the holidays.  (We determine if there is a holiday we aren’t meeting for, and put it in our newsletter on this website.)  While we have a starting time for the meeting, this is not a hard-set time.  The general rule is: come when you can, leave when you need to.  If you can’t make it to the meeting until 8pm some weeks, no problem.  If you have to leave by 9:30pm, that’s not a problem either.  If you can’t attend every week, no problem (we have one member currently attending three meetings a month, and another member that misses one out of every seven meetings).

Our Meeting Structure

1. Introductions: if we have a new member, we do a round-robin and introduce ourselves.
2. Victories: this is a brief open-floor for anyone to bring any victories they’ve had to the table.  These include things like: breaking through writer’s block, publishing a piece, receiving a rejection (yes, even a rejection is a victory – the attempt is the important part), etc.
3. Announcements: such as determining holiday schedules, or any special events, etc.
4. Critique Scheduling: We go over the schedule and determine what will be up for critique in the following weeks.  This is determined on a first come, first served basis.  If anyone is dropped from the schedule, the pieces after it are moved up one slot, unless an author doesn’t want to be moved up.  (If there are issues with the schedule it is up to the group coordinator to determine how to resolve the schedule.  He (or she) makes the final determination.)
5. Critiques: we critique two pieces a week.  These are listed in the newsletter published each week on this website, and emailed out to the group.
6. Round-tables: If we don’t have two pieces to critique in a week, we try to hold a round-table discussion on a writing subject.  (We determine this during the critique scheduling.)

What To Expect

Email List: We will ask if you want to join the mailing list to receive our weekly newsletter (the same one that is published here), and for authors to distribute critique pieces. We do nothing else with your email address, and will gladly remove your address from the list if asked.

What we critique: we are open to critiquing short stories, novels, essays, articles, etc.  The only thing we don’t critique is poetry.  We are open to most genres: literary, general, historical, sci-fi, fantasy, westerns, military, romance (including erotic romance, but not pornography,) non-fiction, etc.

There is no minimum writing skill level for joining the group.  We welcome people that have been keeping a journal for years and want to try their hand at writing something, all the way to published authors.

Submitting Pieces for Critique:  We ask that you attend a few meetings first (typically two or three) and partake in the critique process.  We do this for several reasons:

1. How you critique a piece helps us understand your writing process and skill level.  This helps us to understand  how to critique a piece for your benefit.
2. Participating in the critiques is as much for your benefit as it is for the author.  Critical reading will help you to develop as an editor for your own work, which will help improve your writing.
3. Hearing other peoples critiques will give you some insight into what a critique can (and can’t) do for you.
4. We used to allow new members to submit pieces when they joined. Unfortunately, this lead to several issues: (a) they didn’t like the critique process, (b) they didn’t understand what to expect from the critique, (c) we weren’t able to critique their work to their expectations, (d) they weren’t as invested in the group as the regular members are.
5. Participating for a few weeks levels the playing field for everyone: new and regular members.

Hopefully this gives you some insight into how the Noble Pen works as a writer’s group.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email us using the Contact Us! page.