Noble Pen Meeting

July 1st, 2010
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

— Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe, and Everything

Victories

Lisa joined us. Yea Lisa.

Ciuin has been invited back to Philadelphia for a private seminar with one of the teachers from the Philadelphia writer’s conference. She even found  a sponsor to send her. Her accomplishments a frankly becoming a little annoying, because I can never remember how to spell Philadelphia, but then I remember the name mean “brotherly love,” and I think about the deep history and the Liberty Bell selling crack, and it seems all right.

Tony continues to  re-write, overcoming the paralyzing fear which comes with the possibility of actually making the story worse, with the curling up in the fetal position and crying the eyes out–or is that just me?

Tyree is negotiating a slipstream magazine for Sam’s Dot with the editors of Afterburn SF. I look forward forward to being rejected by them.

News

Amazon and Barnes and Noble are in an e-reader price war.

Agent Nathan Bransord shares how often his name is misspelled in query letters.

Kristen at Pub Rants as an interesting piece explaining single book vs. multi-book deals. I will add it to the list of problems I wish I had.

Upcoming Schedule

Noble Pen Meeting

June 24th, 2010
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

The future is quite different to the present
The one thing we have in common with the present is we still call it the present, even though it’s the future
What you call the present we call the past, so you guys are way behind
— Flight of the Conchords, The Humans Are Dead

Victories

Nick submitted some train slides. I forgot to ask him where, but I bet the periodical either has “Train” or “Trains” in the title.

Ciuin did an agent pitch on Friday and got asked for a full. The agent is thinking about pitching a series for her.  Ciuin steps up to the plate. The agent pitches high and outside, Ciuin hits a grounder between second and third. Ciuin takes first base!

Bob is ready to put is children’s book to the group. Hopefully it won’t be over our heads.

Tyree submitted a piece to Electric Velocipede, which is far superior to those old manual velocipedes.

Tony got a brainstorm and submitted a short story to Flash Fiction Online. I’m trying to come up with a quip about brainstorms, but I’m not having a… serendipitous creative moment.

Bob’s got a new granddaughter. Hopefully it’s his.

After a long and arduous trip, George is Red Hat certified. Personally, I prefer black.

Housekeeping

We have a slightly different scheme for distribution. After I send out this email, the authors up for critique will reply all when their piece is ready. They can choose to include the entire piece or request that people email them for a copy.

We had 11 people last week, and I thought everyone really stayed on task, which makes things easier for me. Great job!

Because the schedule is filling up for the next month, I wanted to remind everyone that you don’t have ask for slots on Thursday Night. You can just send me an email and request to be added to the list.

News

Romance author Candace Havens talks about sex. I’m told it’s a popular subject.

Lynne Veihl has some links to free stuff. I hear people like that too.

Apparently children’s dystopian literature is big these days. I was happy with Bunnicula.

Upcoming Schedule

Noble Pen Meeting

June 17th, 2010
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

The city of San Francisco is being stalked by a huge shaved vampyre cat named Chet, and only I, Abby Normal, emergency backup mistress of the Greater Bay Area night, and my manga-haired love monkey, Foo Dog, stand between the ravenous monster and a bloody massacre of the general public. Which isn’t, like, as bad as it sounds, because the general public kind of sucks ass.

–Christopher Moore, Bite Me

Victories

We were joined for the first time by Mark, Tony, Rachel, and Tyree. And I think I managed not to scare/offend any of them.

Dylan finished his last commission and received another one. I am beginning to believe he doesn’t sleep. Could he be a vampire? I’ve never seen him sparkle.

Tony finished a short story this week and it preparing it for submission. I don’t know enough about Tony or his writing at this point to come up with an original joke, so here’s a video of a man shooting bananas out of his nose.

News

Lynne Viehl talks about luck and how getting a NYT bestseller can be hard even for an already-listed author. She also has promised to show the mass-market ratings list next week.

Candace Havens has a post on Genreality about common mistakes made by beginning writers. One of the items is being able to take criticism, so at least we have that going for us (most days.)

Upcoming Schedule

Noble Pen Meeting

June 10th, 2010
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Rimmer: …Lister! There’s so many things that are strange and
odd. So many things we don’t have any explanation for.

Lister: Like, um, why do intelligent people buy cinema hot dogs? Do you
mean that sort of weird and mysterious thing?

Rimmer: No, Lister, I mean like the pyramids. How did they move such
massive pieces of stone without the aid of modern technology?

Lister: They had massive whips, Rimmer. Massive, massive whips.

–RED DWARF, Episode 4, Waiting for God

Victories

George started his podcast. So if anyone wants to be driven completely insane, they can go to his website and listen.

Dylan managed to write 50,000 words in four days. Unfortunately, they are all the same word. It’s a rather bad one.

Ciuin is up to chapter 20 in her massive revision. She wants to finish her re-writes and revise once more before her writers conference, next week. She really knows how to take it easy on summer vacation.

Shannon went to Wiscon and stood in the corner of parties, watching other people network.

Shannon has been asked to write a short screenplay, which he readily agreed to as he doesn’t know any better.

Special Event

The Noble Pen Welcomes Tyree Campbell, author and Managing Editor of Sam’s Dot Publishing. Based in Cedar Rapids, Sam’s Dot publishes novels, novellas, collections, and online and print magazines.

Tyree will be joining us on June 10th.

News

Lynne Viehl wrote an article on settings.

Garrison Keillor thinks this is the end of publishing as we know it.

Upcoming Schedule