Noble Pen Meeting

May 5th, 2011
Scott’s Family Restaurant
1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

If you’re writing about a character, if he’s a powerful character, unless you give him vulnerability I don’t think he’ll be as interesting to the reader.
–STAN LEE, interview, Mar. 13, 2006

Victories

Dylan submitted a story to torque press. They refuse to admit his existence.

Ciuin is winning.

News

From the LA writers group, what’s in it for the critiquer?

An article on agency agreements.

Housekeeping

First: A huge thank-you to Dylan for taking over the website from George.

Second: Starting next week, we will be going to 2 critiques a week. This is in response to complaints that we are hitting high word counts some weeks and low critique requests for the last scheduling session. After a couple sessions at this pace, we will reevaluate and decide how to tweak the system. Maybe we need to go back to three and set a lower, definite maximum?

Upcoming Schedule

May 5th
(10)Kris
(10)Tyree

May 12th
(11) Ciun
(11) Dylan

May 19th
(11) Kris
(11) Tony

May 26th
(11) Kelly
(11) Shannon

Keep Writing, Penites.

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

April 28th, 2011
Scott’s Family Restaurant
1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

There are two kinds of folks who sit around thinking about how to kill people: psychopaths and mystery writers.
— Richard Castle

Victories

I sent out four beta readers’ copies. Current count: I’ve lost count on how many I’ve sent out. None received back.

Ciuin finished another declaration for the artists’ initiative. She plans to let Sam Raimi know that his characters are cheap stereotypes. I doubt he will be surprised.

News

From George: A public domain copy of THE GREAT GADSBY. And you can read about the author here. Apparently, Wright never used the letter ‘E’ in the entire book, which mean he had as much luck with typewriters as Ciuin has with computers.

From Dylan: An nice article about how not to freak out while writing a novel. Actually, it’s not all that nice.

Upcoming Schedule

April 28th
(10)Shannon
(11) Tyree
Education -> Tyree

May 5th
(10)Kris
(10)Tyree

May 12th
(11) Ciun
(11) Dylan

May 19th
(11) Kris
(11) Tony

May 26th
(11) Kelly
(11) Shannon

Keep Writing, Penites.

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

April 21st, 2011
Scott’s Family Restaurant
1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

“Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal”
–Attributed to Pablo Picasso

Well some people try to pick up girls
And get called assholes
This never happened to Pablo Picasso
He could walk down your street
And girls could not resist his stare and
So Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole
–“Pablo Picasso” by Johnathon Richman

Victories

Bob obtained a copy of Power Writer, dooming him to become Ciuin’s tech support.

The Artist’s Initiative asked Ciuin to be on their advisory board. I’m sure that entitles her to some great deals, like discounted coffee at McDonald’s or 10% off every stay at Howard Johnson.

Tony wrote 95% of Chapter Nine of Breaking History in one day.

News

Pimp My Novel wonders if the physical book will become a niche market like vinyl records.

From Dylan (imagine this in epic reverb): The Periodic Table of Storytelling

Upcoming Schedule

April 21th
(9)Kris
(9)Shannon
(9)Tony

April 28th
(10)Shannon
(11) Tyree
Education -> Tyree

May 5th
(10)Kris
(10)Tyree

May 12th
(11) Ciun
(11) Dylan

May 19th
(11) Kris
(11) Tony

May 26th
(11) Kelly
(11) Shannon

Keep Writing, Penites.

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

April 14th, 2011
Scott’s Family Restaurant
1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

It is written, “He who makes the best egg salad shall rule over heaven and earth.” Don’t ask me, “Why egg salad?” I’ve got enough aggravation.
–High Macha Of Rashpur, What’s Up, Tiger Lily?

Victories

Kris designed a t-shirt for a benefit pub crawl. It’s not really a writing victory, but it’s all we’ve got, so I’m using it.

News

In the “Publishers can’t do math” category, a small publisher explains why they take a loss every time they sell a book on Amazon.

Steal like a pro.

Upcoming Schedule

April 14th
(8)Tony
(9) Tyree
(9) Ciuin

April 21th
(9)Kris
(9)Shannon
(9)Tony

April 28th
(10)Shannon
Education -> Tyree

May 5th
(10)Kris
(10)Tyree

Keep Writing, Penites.

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

April 7th, 2011
Scott’s Family Restaurant
1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

“Ah, my daughter,? he said. ?Eighteen, and already you?ve been accused of murder, aided felons, and acquired a death count higher than most guardians will ever see.? He paused. ?I couldn?t be prouder.”
— Richelle Mead (Last Sacrifice)

Victories

Tyree got first runner up for Darrow Award. He refused to show us the tiara.

Bob’s story was published in Aiofe’s Kiss. I attribute this to his epic beard.

Back it up.

In celebration of the recently passed World Backup Day, March 31st, and in celebration of Ciuin’s recently deceased laptop, I was asked to send out a link to the utility that I use for backup.

The utility is called dropbox. Here is a video about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFb0NaeRmdg Basically, they give you two GB of free online storage and the best synchronization utility (Linux, Mac, or Windows) I’ve ever seen.

Here is a link to dropbox, which gives me referral credit. If you don’t want to give me a referral credit, find it yourself. (It’s really not that hard, the address is even in the video.)

News

From the Nathan Bransford forums, a scary story about finding an agent.

Some new editing marks that could be helpful.

Sure, Borders is closing hundreds of stores, but at least they can find time to give out executive bonuses for saving all that money, from closing all those stores. Maybe they should close all their stores, that would really save on operating costs. Or maybe they could keep one store open in Kansas; they could sell cozy mysteries and keep a couple cats.

Upcoming Schedule

April 7th
(8)Nick
(8)Kris
(8)Bill

April 14th
(8)Tony
(9) Tyree
(9) Ciuin

April 21th
(9)Kris
(9)Shannon
(9)Tony

April 28th
(10)Shannon
Education -> Tyree

May 5th
(10)Kris
(10)Tyree

Keep Writing, Penites.

Shannon