The Noble Pen for Nov 27, 2014

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.

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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