Monthly Archives: June 2009

Noble Pen Meeting, July 2, 2009

Newsletters

Noble Pen Meeting

July 2, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Don’t waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
–Mark Twain

Victories

Ian wrote another Convenient Truth chapter, and created a Facebook page. His first awkward friend request is already on its way.

After twelve attempts, Shannon has the next version of Call of the Beast Chapter One. If COTB falls through, he has vowed to quit writing and go back to his other live goal of winning the Wimbledon Tennis Championships.

News

Now is your chance to name Dick Cheney’s memoir. It is a pity “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” is already taken.

JA Konrath has written an article asking “Should You Self-Publish.”

Nathan Bransford did an online poll on whether listening to audio books count as reading. Not to ruin the suspense, but it was too close to call.

Upcoming Critiques

Thursday, July 2. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Exodus Chapter 6, by Nick. All the folders he brought to Happy Chef were passed out.

Revelation, Chapters 43-46, by Scott Clark. Visit his website at saclark.com, navigate to the “Publishers” tab, and click on the “NP” button to download copies of this section. If you cannot access his website, email him

Thursday, July 9th. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Revised chapters from Ciuin?

An Inconvenient Truth—new chapters from Ian.

Thursday, July 16th. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

I’m thinking Scott and Nick again if they’re willing

Keep Writing

Shannon

News Flash: Facebook Group

Extra, Newsletters, Special Announcements, , ,

News Flash!

Noble Pen Now on Facebook!

I’ve created a Noble Pen group on Facebook.  At this time I’ve invited about ten people that were in my profile to join the group, however I may have missed others.  If I missed you, I’m apologize, but would like to invite you to join the group.  If you know any others that might be interested in our little group, please invite them as well.
The plan for the Noble Pen group on Facebook is to provide another syndication point for picking up our newsletters and news items from the website.  I would also encourage our Facebook participants to share the newsletters and announcements via their profiles.

Noble Pen Meeting, June 25, 2009

Newsletters

Noble Pen Meeting

June 25, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
– Sylvia Plath

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
– Douglas Adams

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.
– Henry David Thoreau

Victories

Nick wrote something.

George got a new keyboard. I don’t want to know why he needed one.

Scott attended a writer’s workshop class, which was struck by an iceberg. He survived by boogie boarding on a frozen Leonardo Dicaprio.

Becky registered for classes and got a new netbook.

Ian helped his daughter rewire her house, absorbing enough voltage to drive his hybrid home without engaging the gasoline engine.

I won the slogan contest with “Dedicated to Developing Community Writers.”

News

Lynn Viehl reminds you not to make a sequel for a book which is still copyrighted.

JK Rowling is being sued by the estate of a guy that once wrote a book about magic.

Engadget is lukewarm on the Kindle DX.

Upcoming Critiques


Thursday, June 25. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Something by Wendy, I think it’s another revision of her chapter one. I might be wrong. An email to her will get you clarification and a copy.

A Convenient Truth by Ian. Available from Ian

Because Wendy can not make this Thursday, I went ahead and put Solomon’s Heist back online. This week, we can look at Thirteen and Fourteen specifically, but I will put the whole piece up in case anyone wants to review 1-12, or is so captivated they can’t stop reading until the end–I wish.

http://shannnonryan.net/user
user:noblepen
pass:nblpn

Thursday, (Possibly) July 2. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Exodus Chapter 6, by Nick. All the folders he brought to Happy Chef were passed out.

Revelation, Chapters 43-?, by Scott Clark. Visit his website at saclark.com, navigate to the “Publishers” tab, and click on the “NP” button to download copies of this section. If you cannot access his website, email him

Straw Poll

The meeting after next is July 2nd, and the 3rd will be a holiday for a lot of people. If I have a meeting, who will show?

Keep Writing

Shannon

Noble Pen Slogan Contest

Special Announcements

Noble Pen Slogan Contest

The Entries

Okay, here are the entries for the Noble Pen Slogan Contest.  We’ll vote on these at Thursday’s meeting.  The winner will be immortalized on the website with their entry displayed prominently on every page!

  • Becky:
    • Playing God for over a decade
    • Come explore the only socially acceptable form of schizophrenia!
    • Ink in our veins, blood on our keyboards
    • Creating Lies for Love and Money
  • Nick:
    • We Put Cedar Rapids in the “Write”
    • We Put the “Write” in Cedar Rapids.
  • Shannon:
    • More fun than Monkey Steals the Peach.
    • Dedicated to Developing Community Writers
  • George:
    • Know your vowels from your novels.
    • Cogito Ergo Grapho
  • Christine:
    • “I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I’m not afraid of falling into my inkpot.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
  • Bill:
    • Writer (n): One who writes.  Have you written today?
    • The write stuff.
    • To boldly go where no pen has gone before.
    • One small step for a pen / One giant leap for our kind.

    The Non-Entries

    Along the way we had a few non-entries. I thought were worth mentioning, but I’m keeping them anonymous to protect the authors:

    • Spinning Yarns and Shagging Dogs
    • Noble Pen: Better than Sex
    • The Penis Mightier

    That’s all for now — I’m off to finish watching “Better Off Ted”.  (It’s the diversity episode.  “Diversity. Good for us.”)

    (Updated: 6/17 @ 8:19am: Added Bill’s entries that I’d mis-placed.)

    June 18, 2009: Noble Pen Meeting

    Newsletters

    Noble Pen Meeting

    June 18, 2009
    Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

    A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre.
    –Samuel Johnson

    Don Murray, a former editor at Time, a Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of 10 books on writing says that at age 73, he is still a young writer trying to learn his craft.
    –Ken O’Quinn, Communication World, Oct 1998

    Victories

    Ian washed a new story and turned in his car for critique.

    Becky has fixed her desktop, but claims she can’t tell us how she did it. I have it on good authority that she is now wanted by authorities in Nova Scotia.

    Give George huge props. He has built us a wonderful new website, http://www.noblepencr.org, and footed the bill. I helped with the graphics, but is still not as cool as this site.

    Bill won last week’s writing contest and took home a copy of “No Plot? No Problem!” by Chris Baty.  I think the organizers fixed the whole thing.

    News

    Lynn Viehl hates your antagonist. (Mine too.)

    The BBC has a piece on songs influenced by JG Ballard, the piece is wasted on me as none of the songs are by Koda Kumi.

    Finally, someone explains why all media comes out on Tuesday–including new windows viruses.

    Upcoming Critiques

    Thursday, June 18. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

    Exodus Chapter 5, by Nick. All the folders he brought to Happy Chef were passed out.

    Revelation, Chapters 32-?, by Scott Clark. Visit his website at saclark.com, navigate to the “Publishers” tab, and click on the “NP” button to download copies of this section. If you cannot access his website, email him

    Thursday, June 25. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

    Something by Wendy

    A Convenient Truth by Ian

    Contest

    George has given us a contest for this week. Come up with a ten word or less slogan for the Noble Pen web site (http://www.noblepencr.org). Mine is going to be “More fun than Monkey Steals the Peach.”

    You keep writing, I’m going to go watch that Koda Kumi video again.

    Shannon

    News Flash: Twitter

    Special Announcements

    News Flash!

    Noble Pen Now with Twitter!

    I’ve added two new features to the site:
    1. As you will notice in the posts, there is now a “Share / Save” button.  You can use this to share our posts with your firends on Facebook, Twitter, Redit, and many other social networking sites.
    2. You can receive updates to the site automatically via Twitter.  Just follow us by going to the Noble Pen Twitter Page.

    Peace out!  Hope you enjoy the features.

    Noble Pen Extra, Flash and Scott

    Extra

    Noble Pen Extra

    Don’t be frightened of cliches.
    — Brian Eno, Oblique Strategies

    Flash Fiction Entries

    We had three entries for the flash fiction contest. The entries can be found at http://shannonryan.net/user/ with the usual username/password (noblepen/nblpn). Thank you to everyone who participated. Remember, the best way to make yourself a better writer is to write more often.

    A Thank You Note from Scott

    Dear Fellow Noble Penners – as the oldest (as in ancient) yet newest member of the group, I have only been writing fiction in earnest for the past three years – prior to that you know I was a syndicated columnist and non-fiction author for almost two decades, and I now see how difficult the hurdle is to overcome when an author attempts to transition from the world of non-fiction into the world of fiction.

    I particularly wanted to share with my fellow Noble Penners some eye-opening experiences I have had with the group in the reviews of my first 31 chapters.

    Aside from learning to banish the cop-out verb “was” from my vocabulary, there are two other significant changes I am making in both my manuscript and my writing style.

    First, I am learning that in many cases ‘less is better,’ particularly when it comes to explaining physical situations, environments, how things operate, etc. (a good example would be my three page explanation of the GADS-I program and its subsequent transition to GADS-II, which did nothing to move the story line along). My engineering/non-fiction backgrounds have always pointed me in the direction of detailed explanations. In the fiction world, I now appreciate the beauty of leaving the process of discovery to the reader.

    Second, I am learning that in many cases ‘more is better,’ particularly when it comes to emotional responses of my characters. While I use ‘character prompt sheets’ developed in detail for each major character to thoroughly understand their emotional responses to specific situations, my readers are not privy to this knowledge; hence they lack sufficient detail to understand why my characters act (and react) as they do (a good example would be why in the hell Brooke kisses her professional partner Lance). Again, my engineering/non-fiction backgrounds have thought me for several decades that good science and good non-fiction is fairly devoid of emotion (this world devoid of emotion was further enhanced by my lifetime of experiences as a twenty-something combat helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War).

    Therefore, my time these days is being spent in fairly major edits to my earlier chapters in Revelation to ensure my physical detail is abridged sufficiently to engage the reader thoroughly, while my emotional detail is enhanced sufficiently to allow the reader to fully realize how and why my characters react as they do.

    As I submit new chapters to the group (you are currently almost half-way through the manuscript), I will try to include some of the additional edits I have made to the earlier chapters to better facilitate you understanding of my characters.

    And for Bill and anyone worried about how my quantity of characters that keeps growing, they have pretty much reached the limit, except for a few characters about to be introduced and immediately killed off.

    My sincere thanks for your feedback to date, which I believe has made me a better author already. See you June 18 after the Writers Workshop on Sci-Fi.

    Scott Clark

    June 11, 2009: Noble Pen Meeting

    Newsletters

    Noble Pen Meeting

    June 11, 2009
    Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

    Act without doing;
    work without effort.
    Think of the small as large
    and the few as many.
    Confront the difficult
    while it is still easy;
    accomplish the great task
    by a series of small acts.
    –Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching Verse 63

    Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic.
    —Stephen King, On Writing

    Victories

    George claimed he was alive–again.

    Sherry’s granddaughter won an award for reading 99 books during the school year–and writing a report on each one. I once got an incomplete in a college course because I couldn’t watch 12 movies in a month and write reports about them.

    Sherry has also been turning out a good deal of posts on the WordPress blog.

    News

    Lifehacker suggests stopping midsentence to ward off writer’s block. They have another half-dozen or so hints if you search their site.

    A blog entry lists Mark Twain’s 10 tips for writing–wait, Mark Twain? Can that really be classified a “News?” I’m pretty sure he died in the eighties… or was that Liberace?

    Here’s a nice piece of advice: Sometimes your character has to be a jerk.

    Upcoming Critiques

    Thursday, June 11. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

    Call of the Beast, Chapter 1–refresher with alternate beginning paragraphs, by Shannon Ryan. One more time, we’re going back to the start to think about the piece as a whole. A set up sheet with the new hooks will be available by the 4th on my site, shannonryan.net –log into “Writing in Progress” (noblepen/nblpn) or email me a for this section.

    Writing Exercise — It’s not too late, the deadline has been extended to Saturday at noon. We will rate an critique the writing excercise. Winner will get a choice of a book or pie. I will have the pieces on my site by tomorrow night (being as how I was so kind to extend the deadline.)

    Thursday, June 18. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

    Exodus Chapter 5, by Nick.

    Revelation, Chapters 32?, by Scott Clark. Visit his website at saclark.com, navigate to the “Publishers” tab, and click on the “NP” button to download copies of this section. If you cannot access his website, email him

    Thursday, June 25. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

    I’m asuming Nick is out. Scott, can you go? This will leave at least one free slot is anyone is interested. Otherwise I will offer to restart Solomon’s Heist so everyone can get to the end.

    Keep Writing

    Shannon