Monthly Archives: January 2013

The Noble Pen for January 31, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

January 31st, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

On-line reviews continue to be problematic.  Not only are positive reviews sometimes solicited or even bought by an author, but negative reviews can be used as a weapon.  A recent book about Michael Jackson received a huge number of bad reviews, mostly by people who probably never saw the book but only posted in response to postings on social media.

A potential solution to much of the problem, it seems to me, is to only allow reviews by people who have purchased the book through that site.

Victories

Janice recovered her writing files from a crashed computer.

Shannon has survived plagues and misfortunes to come to our meeting again.

Tyree was asked to submit a vampire poem for an anthology (paying).  He had it written in a half hour and accepted the next day.

Education

Shannon brought up the Hero’s Journey or Monomyth, which describes the structure of a great many stories.  Here are some links:

The Wikipedia overview of the topic.

The Vladimir Propp version of it.

A chart showing how the journey works with Star Wars/ The Matrix.

—//–

We discussed the need for backups.  Flash drives are great.  The cheapest one in the store will hold more writing documents (without audio/picture/video) than all of us together will ever produce.  Another convenient (and free up to 2 GBytes) option is Dropbox, which not only backs up a folder to their servers, but will also synchronize its folders between all of your machines, and will let you send a link for other people to download selected files.

Upcoming Schedule

Jan 31st
Janice
Tyree
Aimee

Feb 7th

Nick (1 or 2)
Tyree (if no one else)
Janice ?

Feb 14th

Open Slots

Feb 21st

Open Slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for January 24, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

January 24th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Science Fiction News has the spring 2013 edition out.  They give several major award lists, that might offer good choices for your own reading list.

Victories

Dylan had a well-deserved good week.  He submitted BAM to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest.  He got his laptop computer back after weeks of recovering his wife’s photo files, so he can write again.  And he added up his writing output for 2012 at a total of 610k words.  He says, “Writing’s easy.  Editing is hard.”

Education

If you know where to start and end, how do you get the reader to stay with you through the journey?

It’s been a while since I mentioned this series of articles, so will point you to “The Sagging Middle” Part 1 and Part 2 by Camy Tang, which she based on Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer.

It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. ~Ernest Hemingway

As much horror as we have always created, we are a species that keeps moving forward, seeing new sights in new ways, and enjoying the journey. ~Martha Beck

Focus on the journey, not the destination.  Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.  ~Greg Anderson

Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark set before you. ~George Whitefield

Upcoming Schedule

Jan 24th
Janice
Aimee
Tyree

Jan 31st
Janice
Tyree (if no one else)
Aimee

Feb 7th
Nick (1 or 2)
Tyree (if no one else)
Open slot

Feb 14th
Open Slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for Jan 17, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

January 17th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Barnes and Noble had disappointing holiday sales, and Nook sales dropped.

Ebooks aren’t the only category that are being pirated: in India a lot of hard copy books are, too.

See one humorous vision of the future of reading devices.

Victories

Tyree has done more writing since mid November than in the prior year.  Wolf and Nyx4 are each at 13k words.  At the Memphis ShadowCon he was solicited by two publishers for stories.

Nick wrote a chapter of the second book in his planned trilogy and edited corrections to Knight.

Aimee got her computer back so she can write again.

Education

Here’s something on the care and feeding of authors,  for those around you.

Need to find more ideas for your stories? Here are some ways to find them, suggested by Writer’s Digest.

A newly published author tells the story of how she found an agent.  It sounds like she had a very good manuscript but it still took a while to make the right connections.

Upcoming Schedule

Jan 17th

Nick
Tyree
Jed

Jan 24th

Janice
Aimee
Tyree (if no one else)

Jan 31st

Janice
Tyree (if no one else)
Open slot

Feb 7th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for Jan 10, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

January 10th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Since I don’t know any writing-related news, consider a stretch of the imagination by that imaginative guy at xkcd.  It helps to look at things differently now and then.  And who knows?  Might the Romulans or the Xorgeins make it happen?

Victories

Nick bought word processing software for a new computer and has vowed to learn how to use its features.  He has started writing with it.

Dylan survived a difficult slice of life.  Despite the tribulations he submitted a story that was rejected for not having the required POV, and submitted another to a new magazine.

Ciuin is done with her school-break job and can write again.

Education

Writer’s Digest offers advice on collecting story ideas , on receiving critiques, and on picking beta readers.

Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a person’s growth without destroying his roots. ~Frank A. Clark

I do think the patriotic thing to do is to critique my country. How else do you make a country better but by pointing out its flaws?  ~Bill Maher

It is easier to be critical than correct. ~Benjamin Disraeli

Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. ~Aristotle

Upcoming Schedule

Jan 10th

Tyree
Nick
Ciuin

Jan 17th

Nick
Tyree
Jed

Jan 24th

Janice
Aimee
Jed (?)

Jan 31st

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill