Monthly Archives: June 2013

The Noble Pen for July 4, 2013 (Holiday edition)

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

July 11th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

In celebration of the 237th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we’ll not be meeting on July 4.

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Send the moderator your list of references for authors that you would be willing to loan other members.  The Lending Library will be posted here.

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Dylan renewed the noblepencr.org domain name for five years at a cost of $52.50. We collected some donations to cover part of that and will accept any further donations at the meeting.

Victories

Rachel had a breakthrough in her writing by finding a stronger voice for her main character.

Aimee has time to write more on her new work schedule.

Education

Are book titles protected by copyright?  Generally not.  The existence of another book that comes up in a Google search with your title doesn’t preclude your using it, and there are lots of books that share titles.  This article mentions that there are at least a dozen books named “Nemesis.”  To avoid confusion you probably shouldn’t name it something on the recent best seller lists,  famous like “War and Peace” and “Macbeth”, or a variation like “The Da Vinci Cipher”.

Your biggest limitation is probably trademarks on character names and series identifications.  See also here and the US Government site FAQ.  You can’t call your book  “Luke Skywalker Visits Des Moines”,  “Igloo Building for Dummies”, or “The Hardy Boys Mystery On Mars”.

Upcoming Schedule

July 4th

No meeting

July 11th

Nick
Shannon
Ciuin

July 18th

Tyree
Jed
Nick

July 25th

Rachel
Aimee
Jed

August 1st

Tyree
Rachel
Barbara

August 8th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Lending Library

Special Announcements

This space lists reference materials that Noble Pen members are willing to loan to other members.
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From Bill H:
Lukeman, Noah, The First Five Pages, a Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile. Fireside Book by Simon & Schuster, 2000.   Review: Good advice on most of the topics that writers need advice about.   I find their format of “problem, solution, examples” to be harder to digest than examples integrated into the other discussion, but the examples are good.

Strunk, William, and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, 3rd Ed. MacMillan Publishing, 1979.  Review: This slim classic covers 56 topics that are basic to any kind of writing.

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The Noble Pen for June 27, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

June 27th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

We’re collecting a list of good writing references you would be willing to loan to other members, giving title, author, and publisher.  Send your information to the moderator.

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Dylan renewed the noblepencr.org domain name for five years at a cost of $52.50.  We collected some donations to cover part of that and will accept any further donations at the meeting.

Victories

Ciuin found a bunch of errors in the labeling of museum displays and, when relating this to local museum people, was asked to consult on labeling of an upcoming exhibit.

Tyree did research for one of his stories by asking a local pharmacist about prescriptions for heart patients.  There are experts all around who might help you with facts for a story.

Education

An author must do a lot of self-editing to hone their work to its best.  You may be tempted to not do it right, and commit some of the seven deadly sins of self-editing.

You might benefit from an mechanics editing checklist or  general editing checklist.  Jody Hedlund has a list tailored to fiction writers.  She and others say many people catch different problems on paper versus on the screen.  Natalie Sharpston agrees, and for either she has an excellent list.

When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest. ~Stephen King

The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its Writer. ~Zadie Smith

So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads. ~Dr. Seuss

Edit your manuscript until your fingers bleed and you have memorized every last word. Then, when you are certain you are on the verge of insanity…edit one more time! ~C.K. Webb

Upcoming Schedule

June 27th

Tyree
Jed
Aimee

July 4th

No meeting

July 11th

Nick
Shannon
Ciuin

July 18th

Tyree
Jed
Nick

July 25th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for June 20, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

June 20th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Having received only a small response on the idea of building a lending library, we have a less ambitious proposal.  Send the moderator a list of good writing references you would be willing to loan to other members, giving title, author, and publisher.  If we get several listed, we’ll put the list somewhere on the web site.

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After recent news, sales of Orwell’s 1984 have jumped to at least number 213 on Amazon’s best seller list.  And these authors seem to have lucked out on timing their book.

Victories

People seem to be busily writing, but had no special victories this week.

Education

It is important that characters have distinct “voices” or ways of talking so the reader can easily picture them as individual personalities and distinguish them from each other without relying entirely on the dialog tags.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself about how your characters speak.

Alicia Rasley offers some advice and exercises to help a writer develop character voice.

Here’s a good list of things to think about and some great suggestions.

A man’s style is his mind’s voice. Wooden minds, wooden voices. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Do the other kids make fun of you? For how you talk?”
“‘Sometimes.”
“‘So why don’t you do something about it? You could learn to talk differently, you know.”
“But this is my voice. How would you be able to tell when I was talking?”
~Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning. ~Maya Angelou

There is no index of character so sure as the voice. ~Benjamin Disraeli

Upcoming Schedule

June 20th

Janice
Tyree
Nick

June 27th

Tyree
Jed
Aimee

July 4th

No meeting

July 11th

Nick
Shannon
Open slot

July 18th

Open slots

Keep Writing,

Bill

The Noble Pen for June 13, 2013

Newsletters

Next Noble Pen Meeting

June 13th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Welcome to Christine, who found the group.

The consensus is that we do not meet on July 4.

Someone suggested that the Noble Pen start a lending library, to be funded by contributions and contain writers’ resources such as an agent directory and the best advice books.  Please comment on the proposal.

Long-time author Jack Vance died at age 96.  He wrote in several genres, including mystery and what some people called science fiction.  His collected works comprised 45 volumes.  He disliked the term SF and said he was a “speculative anthropologist” because his stories were about people in strained or bizarre situations.

The Pulitzer prizes were announced in April.

F&SF Conventions

For those whose interests are not bounded by present and past possibilities, the next BIG convention in the midwest is CONvergence, July 4 – 7 in Bloomington, MN.  There will be, among other things, a steampunk/British invasion fashion expo, a judged or just-for-fun masquerade ball, and an impressive list of fantasy/sci fi authors, screenwriters, and playwrights (including Janice’s top favorite, Steven Brust).

A little farther out is OSFest, July 26 – 28 in Omaha, NE.

Around the country are many more, including FenCon  in Dallas/Ft. Worth, October 4-6, ConClave in Detroit October 11-13,  MileHiCon in Denver October 18-20th .

Closer to home, DemiCon is in November, and Iowa-ICon is in the spring.

Victories

Tyree got back to his apocalyptic novel and the words are flowing nicely.

Nick is writing and editing more lately.

Christine got a request for a full manuscript of her novel.

Education

We had a request for information about writing queries and finding agents.  The first rule in contacting an agent or publisher is to know what they are looking for, and to follow their individual submission guidelines.

Writer’s Digest sells one of the best-known resources, the Guide to Literary Agents that comes out each fall. (WD site) (Amazon) (wikipedia)  They also market more specialized guides for magazine writers (Writer’s Market),  screenwriters, poets, photographers, and other market segments.

AgentQuery offers some resources.

A resource often  mentioned is Query Tracker.  Check it out to see if you could benefit either from registering for its services or just from browsing its forum for information on agents, publishers, writing techniques, success stories, etc.  You could spend days on the site.

The web site Predators and Editors offers warnings about scams a writer may encounter in the publishing business.

An editor tells why a writer needs an agent.

An agent’s advice on writing a query letter.  Writer’s Digest published this list of Dos and Don’ts.

Agent Rachelle Gardner gives her own desired query format (which won’t match other agents), and offers 13 ways to impress an agent.

Here’s what might be a poor attempt at a query letter, that did NOT impress an agent.

Here are 10 things a writer should find out if offered representation, and 10 things they may need to answer.

A typical agent in New York gets 400 query letters a month. Of those, they might ask to read 3-4 manuscripts, and of those, they might ask to represent 1.  [ …]  Above all, a query letter is a sales pitch and it is the single most important page an unpublished writer will ever write. It’s the first impression and will either open the door or close it. It’s that important, so don’t mess it up.  Mine took 17 drafts and two weeks to write. ~Nicholas Sparks

Upcoming Schedule

June 13th

Jed
Tyree

June 20th

Janice
Tyree
Nick

June 27th

Tyree
Open slots

July 4th

No meeting

July 11th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill