Next Noble Pen Meeting

May 24th, 2012 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Countering all the publicity about what we can do with electronic communications, a new book called iDisorder  explores what our electronic devices are doing to us.

Publisher’s Weekly is another source of current news in the world of books.

Victories

Tyree finished and submitted a steampunk story that has been on his list to do for a year.

Lynda sold a story that we reviewed a while back to Grain Magazine, the Journal of Eclectic Writing, and will get paid very well at publication.

Dylan got fan mail for his serial story.

Nick finished Part I of a science fiction story.

Education

Some authors find help in writer’s software with more power than a word processor.  Here’s a comparison chart  including PowerWriter,  WriteItNow,  Writer’s DreamKit,  Writer’s Cafe, and others.

These programs, costing $30 to $130 (list price), integrate the functions of outlining or storyboarding, note taking, character sheets, and writing to a much greater degree than word processors like MS Word and WordPerfect.  Some go beyond spelling and thesaurus to offer a full dictionary and even name lists from which to choose characters.  They still do not write the story for you, nor give a reader’s critique.

“A computer, I am told, … will help you write faster, easier, and more…    I have already left behind too much evidence that, writing with a pencil, I have written too fast, too easily, and too much.  I would like to be a better writer, and for that I need help from other humans, not a machine.” ~Wendell Berry

“Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and the Internet is nothing like Shakespeare.” ~(modified from) Blair Houghton

Upcoming Schedule

May 24th

Ciuin
Jean
Bill

May 31st

Tyree
Shannon
Jean

June 7th

Nick
Open slots

June 14th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill