Next Noble Pen Meeting

Aug 1st, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Barnes & Noble is discontinuing their color Nook after 2013, and plan to work with other vendors for hardware.  The company has recently been losing a lot of money.   Some pundits think the discontinuance is an indication of a bleak future for the chain.

–/–

The Drabbler is accepting submissions for 100-word stories about alien sports.  They typically pick 20 or 25 out of 200 submissions, so your odds are reasonably good if you are good.  Submit to http://albanlake.com.  See guidelines.

Victories

Jed finished reading Moby Dick.  He’s making great progress on his reading list.

Aimee read Fahrenheit 451.

The new edition of The Drabbler published Tyree’s quiz about alien cuisine and eating habits across the galaxy.

Education

What are you taking for granted, and leaving out of your writing, that could help define the world your characters live in?

Perhaps food?  Its scarcity, richness, or strangeness could add a lot.

Clothing? (another link)  “Joe looked up from lacing his boots” versus  “Joe smoothed the velcro flap of his slippers” paint very different pictures.  Does he wear a suit, sweater, sweatshirt?  How long is her skirt?  Does she wear a hat?

Weather?  Maybe not “a dark and stormy night”, but does the character pick up his umbrella before leaving, put on sunscreen before going out, use insect repellent, go fetch his overcoat, get lulled to sleep by the sound of rain?

Most of these things can be slipped into small actions between dialog or commented on by the characters to save having paragraphs of explicit description.

Upcoming Schedule

August 1st

Tyree
Nick
Barbara

August 8th

Rachel
Tyree
Barbara

August 15th

Nick
Ciuin
Open slot

August 22nd

Open slots

August 29th

Open slots

Keep Writing,

Bill