Next Noble Pen Meeting

November 1st, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Greg Lukianoff writes that free speech is endangered on college campuses, of all places.

Victories

Dylan had an exciting week.  He got his first check from Amazon for sales.  He finished the end of Becoming A Man.

Then someone thought his serial was good enough to plagiarize 18 chapters, changing the title and names but not much else.  He got distribution of the copy stopped.

And Casting Call was recommended on GoodReads, so he put a new cover on it and made it available through them and Smashwords.

Tyree reports proudly that one of the authors who has been with  Sams Dot “graduated” to the bigger scene by having a novel picked up by an agent in London.

Education

There’s no shortage of people interested in writing the great American novel.  Last year 250,000 people started NaNoWriMo, and about 1 in 7 wrote 50,000 words of a novel.  With competition like that, you gotta be good to get anywhere.  Keep improving.

–//–

Feel like your life is not bringing you interesting ideas for writing?  Elizabeth Sims suggests doing a few things out of your comfort zone to bring on new ideas and knowledge.  Just think it through and don’t risk more than you can stand to lose.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing. ~Warren Buffett

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.  ~George Bernard Shaw

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.  ~Jim Rohn

Upcoming Schedule

Nov 1st

Nick
Tyree story 1
Tyree story 2 or more of 1

Nov 8th

Dylan, double slot (conclusion of BAM)
Open slot

Nov 15th

Tyree
Nick
Open slots

Nov 22nd
Open slots

Keep Writing,

Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 25th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Victories

Dylan received three form rejections.  He didn’t let that discourage him; he submitted Flight to the Harper Voyager opening.

Shannon got a five-star review on Amazon for Minion.

Ciuin wrote a class paper today that she thinks is good, and for the first time in quite a while she didn’t let a former teacher’s discouraging words hold her back.

Education

Backups are vital.  You will need one when you are least prepared.  Some people consider it necessary to have at least three copies of any important work, for instance on the working computer, on a flash drive, and on a cloud storage service.

One such cloud service is Dropbox, which offers 2 Gbytes for free, keeps a couple old versions of things that are replaced, allows you to share selected folders with people by giving them a password, and also provides synchronization if you set it up on multiple computers.  There are other similar services.

Setting it up on your computer with this referral link will get both you and me some extra storage space compared to just going to the site and signing up (or ask one of your friends for a referral and help them).

/—/

Don’t quit your day job.  This article shows that even optimistic estimates of writing success, like making the NY Times Best Seller list, aren’t enough to live on.

/—/

Do you have to have inspiration from real people to create characters?  Robert J. Sawyer argues that you shouldn’t have to, but the idea of totally making them up goes against something deep inside us.

Another essayist does not like to read fiction in which real people are recognizable, even aside from the legal problems an author may encounter.

Here are ten famous characters modeled on real people.  And this article gives some examples, but lists several reasons why you usually shouldn’t.

I never tell who it is I base my character quirks on in case they get offended, but I do base them on real people. As an actor I see myself a bit like a sponge where I absorb peoples different characteristics. It makes my characters on screen more realistic. ~Emily Blunt

In the theater there is often a tension, almost a contradiction, between the way real people would think and behave, and a kind of imposed dramaticness. ~Tom Stoppard

I’m very drawn to characters who are very flawed. I’m less interested in characters who are just good or bad, because to me then they’re not real people. ~Rachel Weisz

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 25th

Tyree
Dylan
Ciuin

Nov 1st

Nick
Tyree
Dylan

Nov 8th

Tyree
Open slots

Nov 15th

Nick
Open slots

Keep Writing,

Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 18th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Victories

Aimee is planning for NaNoWriMo.

Dylan finished his commission.  He plans to send Flight to the Harper Voyager call for submissions.

Ciuin got a public apology from a professor.

Nick saw a remarkable train, the twin Nebraska Zephyr set, with 1936 era cars.  Will it show up in a story?

Education

J. A. Konrath is offering a 1,000 page book, a collection of his postings on how to be a writer, The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, as a free download PDF or cheap Kindle book on his web site.

–x–

A cynical look at Understanding On-line Star Ratings.

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 18th

Dylan
Shannon
Nick

Oct 25th

Tyree
Dylan
Ciuin

Nov 1st

Nick
Tyree
Open slots

Nov 8th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 11th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Victories

Dylan hit the one year anniversary on his weekly serial at 350,000 words.  He  is going to stop taking commission work and concentrate on his own writing.

Tyree finished his entry for next week. He is working on a book that involves Romani characters.

Ciuin is back in touch with her editor/mentor.  She was asked to be the technical adviser for Romani culture in Tyree’s next book.

Education

Brian Klems tries to explain the difference between a writer’s voice and style.  Steve Thompson goes to greater length on the subject, but sums it up as:

The voice is the word choice and method of speaking and thinking as demonstrated by characters, while style is much more broad.

Randy Ingermanson links style to “writing patterns” and voice to “attitude”.

Wikipedia also has articles on writer’s voice and writing style.  After reading these and some other articles, I’m still not sure I get it.  They seem to overlap and many sources’ explanations of one make reference to the other.

–x–

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn. ~Gore Vidal

To understand a literary style, consider what it omits. ~Mason Cooley

Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward. ~Robert Frost

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us. ~Nietzsche

Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Upcoming Schedule

Oct  11th

Tyree
Dylan
Mark

Oct  18th

Dylan
Shannon
Nick

Oct  25th

Tyree
Dylan
Open slot

Nov 1st

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill