Next Noble Pen Meeting

December 4th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

The first “comprehensive and annotated” autobiography of Laura Ingalls Wilder will hit the stores soon.   Called Pioneer Girl, it is a project of the South Dakota Historical Society.  She wrote down much of the gritty detail of her life before writing the fiction series of Little House books, which draw on her life but are dramatized with made-up characters and events.  Now the autobiographical material has been published and supported by research.

Victories

I’m sure everyone got a lot of writing done.

Education

Passive voice (wikipedia) is usually not the most effective way to express the exciting events of a story, but it can have its place.

Passive means that the object of the action is put in the place where you expect a subject, as in “The letter was written by me.”  The object – the thing written- starts the sentence where you expect a subject.  This changes the emphasis from who did it to what was done.

The passive sentence “The bank was approached by the stealthy conspirators” probably has the emphasis in the wrong place.  We need to pay more attention to the conspirators than the bank, which is just sitting there, and active voice helps us do that, as “The stealthy conspirators approached the bank.”

Sometimes passive voice is appropriate; “the letter” could be the most important to the idea being expressed rather than the writer.  “The letter was written by me, but the enclosed poem was not.”  Another use of passive voice, particularly in scholarly writing, is to talk about a result while avoiding the mention of who caused the action, which may be unimportant or unknown.  “A new cancer drug was developed that year.”  “The bank was robbed last week.”  The wikipedia article gives more discussion of when passive is appropriate.

Note that not every form of the verb “to be” is passive.  (Part 2) In particular, the progressive (also called continuous) tenses are active, as in “I was running.”  Also note that running is still an active verb in this case, not a gerund (noun form) as it would be in “Running makes me ache.”

Upcoming Schedule

Dec 4
Tyree
Ciuin
Cassie

Dec 11
Aimee
Mark
Eugenia

Dec 18
Cindy
Cassie
Dylan (?)

Dec 25
Christmas – no meeting

Jan 1
New Year’s Day – no meeting

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

December 4th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Most employers are giving their people Thursday off to work on their writing.  Consequently, we will not meet and interrupt that important work.

–//–

Fairy tales tend to have mild versions of the bad guys, but a new translation shows that wasn’t always so and they may have been rather Grimm, er… grim.

Victories

Dylan received two reviews of Sand and Blood.  Unfortunately they weren’t as positive as he hoped.

Ciuin made progress on edits of Petty Theft.

Cassie edited a lot on Dreams in Red.  She added two scenes to BMB, now renamed Kiss the Rain to fit with a scheme for a series.  She has also made plans to redo a short story as a novella.

Education

As we approach the end of the year, it is a good time to think about anything you might want to do that affects your taxes, and to be sure your records are organized.  Writers may wonder if they can deduct writing-related expenses.  Your tax preparer can assess your particular situation, but this article gives some general things to consider.

If you have have enough income from writing sales to qualify as a business, your directly related expenses are probably deductible, for example printer cartridges, paper, writing tutorial books, postage for submissions, and travel (solely) to promote a published book.   See Publication 535.  Your new computer or dedicating a home office to writing are trickier, and you should consult an expert.

Unfortunately, most of those expenses come before a new writer has significant sales.  It is risky to claim a loss from a sideline “business” activity.   See Publication 535.  The IRS may permit this at first, but if you don’t show a profit within a small number of years you will probably owe taxes and interest for back years as they disallow the loss as a hobby and probably conduct an audit.

You might think it only fair that you could deduct hobby expenses up the amount of hobby income.  Nope.  All hobby income is supposed to be reported, but the expenses are an itemized deduction (only useful if your deductions total more than standard deduction) and then only the part exceeding 2% of your total income

That means that if your writing is classified as a hobby, your $500 in sales is taxable income, but your $499 expenses probably won’t end up affecting your deductions.  Sucks, doesn’t it?

Upcoming Schedule

Nov 27
Thanksgiving – no meeting

Dec 4
Tyree
Ciuin
Cassie

Dec 11
Aimee
Mark
Eugenia

Dec 18
Cindy
Cassie
Dylan (?)

Dec 25
Christmas – no meeting

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

November 20th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Welcome to Cindy, who found the group.

–//–

A font intended to help dyslexics with their reading is getting new attention.  More information at www.dyslexiefont.com.

Victories

Cassie wrote for a whole day, editing five chapters and adding 1,625 words.

Mark wrote 4,000 words in one day.

Ciuin got another A on a paper.  Maybe we should just have her tell us when she doesn’t.

Nick wrote a 5,000 word report for the train spotters.

Dylan sold more books to coworkers.

Education

All writers can benefit from good beta readers.  An interesting essay discusses three types of beta readers and when you want each. Which are you, Generalist, Shredder, or SpaGster, or a combination?  Here’s another take on what makes a good beta reader.

Upcoming Schedule

Nov 20
Dylan
Mark
Eugenia

Nov 27
Thanksgiving – no meeting

Dec 4
Tyree
Ciuin
Cassie

Dec 11
Aimee
Mark
Eugenia

Dec 11
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

November 13th, 2014 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

A story by John Steinbeck has been found that apparently was never distributed beyond being read on the radio.

Victories

Ciuin got 95% on a difficult paper, as compared to a great many in the class who failed.

Dylan sold more books at a convention.

Tyree now sees how Wolf should end.

Cassie has averaged 600 words/day for NaNoWriMo, somewhat less than the goal, but she has some days planned for just writing.

Education

There are some words of wisdom from several successful authors.

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Tyree gives a high recommendation to the book It Was the Best of Sentences, It was the Worst of Sentences.  It shows how several things that are frequently deplored in writing can be a problem, or when used sparingly can provide a good effect.  It has received other high reviews, and the occasional nit-picker’s dissenting opinion.

Upcoming Schedule

Nov 13
Dylan
Mark
Tyree

Nov 20
Dylan (?)
Mark
Eugenia (?)

Nov 27
Thanksgiving – no meeting

Dec 4
Tyree
Ciuin
Open slots

Dec 11
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill