Next Noble Pen Meeting

Aug 29th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Prolific author Elmore Leonard died recently at age 87 after a long career – his publication dates run from 1951 to 2012.  He started with westerns and became known for crime fiction and suspense thrillers.  About 15 of his nearly 50 novels  and even some short stories were made into movies, some were used for TV series, and he also wrote screenplays.

Victories

Janice is happy that her classes have started.  After being away from school for 15 months, she missed it.  In that time, however, she read 28 books and wrote 180,000 words.

Tyree’s Breathless Stars is out from the printers.  He got a silver English crown coin, which is relevant to his current story, and it comes with a detailed history lesson.

Dylan got a test print of Sand & Blood to check the layout.  He is still waiting for the paid editor to finish so he can put out the real thing.

Jed wrote several pages of a new story.

Education

Should you use split infinitives?  We’ve been taught to avoid doing so, possibly as a hold-over from Latin.  This article and this one say it can sometimes be effective, as in “to boldly go where no man …”, or “The population is expected to more than double.” However, it should only be done when not doing so weakens the sentence, and never in a cover letter or query where it might turn off an editor.

And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before–and thus was the Empire forged. ~Douglas Adams.

Upcoming Schedule

August 29th
Janice
Matt & Barbara
Jed

Sept 5th
Nick
Laura
Rachel

Sept 12th
Tyree
Dylan
Jed

Sept 19th
Nick
Tyree?
Janice?

Sept 26th
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

Aug 22nd, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Tyree has a long list of resources he is willing to loan.  See the lending library.

Victories

Nick wrote on a sequel to the story we are currently reviewing.

Janice wrote again on her story about Chloe.

Tyree survived a year and looks forward to the next one.

Education

And they lived happily ever after.  That may sometimes be a reasonable ending, but you certainly aren’t going to keep most readers turning pages if the characters are already living happily from the beginning to the end.  James Scott Bell points out common problems with stories, most involving a lack of unpredictable challenges.

I can take two people, throw a world of obstacles at them, defy the odds, and still give them a happily-ever-after. Together. I am a romance author. What’s your superpower? ~Kelly Moran

‘Fairy Tales always have a happy ending.’  That depends… on whether you are Rumpelstiltskin or the Queen. ~Jane Yolen

Upcoming Schedule

August 22nd

Molly
Tyree
Dylan

August 29th

Janice
Matt & Barbara
Jed

Sept 5th

Nick
Laura
Rachel

Sept 12th

Tyree
Open slots

Sept 19th
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

Aug 8th, 2013 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

England plans to honor Jane Austen by putting her picture and a quote on paper currency.  Some cheer and some nitpick that a good quote used came from a not-so-nice character.   It appears that they aren’t as limited in their choices as the US, where dead presidents are mostly pictured.

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Poll: please email the newsletter editor (privately if you wish) as to what percentage of the “News” and “Education” sections are worth your time to read.  I get almost zero feedback about items being useful or worthless, and wonder if it is worth the time to collect them.

Victories

Ciuin’s submitted her academic article to the museum journal.

Dylan got 4th place in a short story contest.  He has made good progress in packaging Sand and Blood for publication.

Tyree needed a change of focus, so he pulled out an old short story and a poem, polished them up, and submitted them for publication.

Education

Some (but not all) writers advise that your first draft should be just be a way to capture ideas, “mining the clay and not making the sculpture,” as Kathy Leonard Czepiel puts it.  Jon Gingerich says the first draft is expected to be pretty bad.  You should then rework it before anyone else reads it.

This is also the philosophy pushed by NaNoWriMo, where you write a novel in a month (that’s coming up in a couple months, so think about participating).   Julie Danneberg also likes the “fast and furious” method.

The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. ~Terry Pratchett

Every first draft is perfect, because all a first draft has to do is exist. ~Jane Smiley

I believe the first draft of a book — even a long one — should take no more than three months…Any longer and — for me, at least — the story begins to take on an odd foreign feel, like a dispatch from the Romanian Department of Public Affairs, or something broadcast on high-band shortwave during a period of severe sunspot activity. ~Stephen King

You can’t revise it if you haven’t written it. ~Justin Cronin

(The minority opinion:) I don’t write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing.  ~Dean Koontz

Upcoming Schedule

August 8th

Rachel
Tyree
Barbara

August 15th

Nick
Ciuin
Tyree ?

August 22nd

Rachel
Tyree
Ciuin

August 29th

Janice
Matt & Barbara
open slot

August 36th

Nick
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill