Monthly Archives: March 2013

The Noble Pen for April 4, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

April 4th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Amazon has negotiated the purchase of Goodreads.  Many people are upset, questioning whether reviews will remain neutral and if it will be harder for new books to get discovered.

Barnes & Noble are feuding with Simon and Schuster over pricing, and are ordering fewer books from them.  As if B&N needed any more troubles.

Bullying is a currently hot topic for books.   Despite the sympathy these may create, a study says that overall, literature is getting less emotional.

I was fascinated by a statement in this review of a book on early mapmakers.  The map that gave America its name shows information that shouldn’t have been known by the mapmaker at the time.  Anyone for an alternate history novel?

 Victories

Dylan as someone working on a cover for Sand and Blood.

Tyree had lots of sales at a convention and thinks that people are buying more books in general than last year.  One of his stories was nominated for a Darrell Award.

Ciuin was offered the opportunity to write an academic paper for publication.  Now if she can just find time …

Bill had a letter to the editor published in the Gazette.

Education

Dina Nayeri (no, not the blue girl) gives a glimpse inside the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.  She says the writers are very human, with all that implies, and inherently driven to write.

Writer’s Digest has been pushing the idea that writing a great book isn’t enough – they suggest you have to have a marketing plan and a large blog audience and other publicity in order to get an agent or publisher interested.  I haven’t researched how widely this idea is accepted, but it sure is discouraging.

Upcoming Schedule

Apr 4th

Janice
Tyree
Jed

Apr 11th

Tyree (double?)
Jed

Apr 18th

Mark S.
Laura
Aimee

Apr 25th

Janice
Jed
Open slot

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for Mar 28, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

March 28th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Reminder

Please try to get your material for review out by Monday night.  If it is late, reduce it from the nominal size of 6,000 words per slot.  We want people to have a day’s advance time for reading for each 2,000 words of your submission.

 Victories

Shannon was invited to submit to a publisher, but unfortunately has nothing ready and suitable for them.

Ciuin’s editor for Petty Theft wants to help get it to an agent.

Education

Some people outline carefully before writing, others get an idea and go for it.  Regardless of which approach you use (or something in between) your story ultimately needs structure.   James Scott Bell writes about giving your story a structure.

Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure. ~Albert Einstein

Every king was once a helpless baby & every great structure once a blueprint… Its not where are you today, but where you’ll reach that counts. ~unknown

Upcoming Schedule

Mar 28th

Janice
Jed (double slot)

Apr 4th

Janice
Tyree
Jed

Apr 11th

Tyree
Jed?
Open slot

Apr 18th

Mark S.
Laura
Open slot

Apr 25th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for March 21, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

March 21st, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Essays by Robert Louis Stevenson recently turned up, after being unseen for 120 years or more.  It makes you wonder whether in 2130 someone will discover an unfinished Nyx 17, Mattais’ Grandchildren, or Fangs 7 manuscript.

 Victories

Dylan got another commission.

Education

An interesting lecture by Gary Lutz is on line.  After some personal background, he discusses what makes interesting sentences.  He finds a lot of depth in simple words.

Ciuin discussed a book called It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences that gives humorous-by-exaggeration examples, to make you more aware of the subtle problems you might be having.

Upcoming Schedule

Mar 21st

Nick (double-the end of the Knight story)
Janice

Mar 28th

Janice
Jed
Ciuin

Apr 4th

Janice
Tyree
Jed

Apr 11th

Tyree
Open slots

Apr 18th

Mark S.
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for March 14, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

March 14th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

We had a great attendance at the last meeting.  Unfortunately, that means it is harder to get things done in a timely and orderly manner.  We are going to have to be stricter with such good attendance.  As I remember the rules from when we routinely had a dozen participants,

-The person giving critique has the floor and discussions is saved for after the round of critiques.  (Let’s not have to bring back the Cone of Silence.)

-Keep the side conversations down and attention on the matter before the group, no matter how much what someone just said reminds you of a funny scene in a classic movie.

-Limit the critiques to about three good things and three that show how you think it could be improved.  It is not necessary to talk about every item you marked – talk about the trends.

-After the round of critiques, the author gets to ask for clarifications and explain widely-misunderstood points.  It is not necessary to “defend” the work nor to respond to each item mentioned in the critiques.

-A free-form discussion may follow, before we pass in the papers.  This will often be an extension of topics brought up during the critique round, but may be anything relevant to the work under review and, of course, civil.

-//-

Random House has generated a furor over exceedingly bad contract terms offered under its Hydra e-pub sci-fi imprint and Alibi mystery-crime imprint.  The consensus is that you are unlikely to make any money since they charge an unspecified amount for their services.  SFWA has declared they don’t count as publishing credits.  Random House has issued a reply that hasn’t smoothed any feathers.

 Victories

Dylan got thorough feedback on Sand & Blood (formerly BAM).  Unfortunately it was pretty negative.  He got paid for a commission and will get another from that patron.  He has reached a half-million words on his serial and plans to end in a “few” more chapters.

Janice found employment and it won’t keep her from writing.

Shannon is about a couple chapters from the end of Panic.

Nick started the 2nd book of his sci-fi trilogy.

Ciuin finished reading the 4th book on her yearly list.

Education

One new writer talks about how she got an agent.  It took patience and hard work, and lots of queries and rejections.  Sometimes you can learn from rejections, as this very helpful piece explains.  You have to believe in your opus, perhaps even to the point of borderline arrogance.

As an artist you have to have a certain amount of arrogance. ~Kim Weston

As is our confidence, so is our capacity. ~ William Hazlitt

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. ~Samuel Johnson

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance. ~Bruce Barton

Upcoming Schedule

Mar 14th

Nick (double)
Tyree

Mar 21st

Nick (double-the end of the Knight story)
Janice

Mar 28th

Janice
Tyree (if no one needs slot)
Ciuin (?)

Apr 4th

Janice
Tyree (?)
Open slot

Keep Writing,

Bill

The Noble Pen for March 7, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

March 7th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

People may want to check out a fairly new enterprise, pressbooks.com. They offer e-book formatting and paper printing services and have ties to some distribution networks.  Some of the services are available gratis.

 Victories

Dylan learned that Flight was rejected by Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. He has renamed his series of novels. He sold a story and finished a 15K word commission at 34K words.  He just can’t end a good tale once he gets going.

Education

Book titles have their issues.  Of course, if you get a major publisher they may dictate the title.  But if you are picking a title yourself, you need to consider many factors.  Brian Klems says it can’t be a rip-off of something popular like Harry Potter’s New Adventure, but it can be a title that has been used before.  Scott Berkum offers many thoughts on picking titles.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. ~William Shakespeare

We don’t have to think up a title till we get the doggone book written.
~Carl Sandburg

Upcoming Schedule

Mar 7th

Janice
Aimee (item sent for missed meeting)
Tyree

Mar 14th

Nick (double)
Tyree

Mar 21st

Nick (double-rumor has it this is the end of the Knight story)
Mark

Mar 28th

Janice
Tyree (if no one needs slot)
Open slot

Apr 4th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill