Next Noble Pen Meeting

Jan 28th, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

NPR book critics offer the best of 2015, organized by categories.

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The Spring (northern hemisphere) edition of Science Fiction News is on line.

Victories

Dylan got his editing program to use multiple spelling dictionaries: general, personal, project, etc.  That helps with the words and names unique to each book.  He is now working to catch up with commissions.

Shannon was heard on two podcasts pushing his book and mentioned Dylan’s publishing company.

Cassie broke through a block on her story Follow You Anywhere.

Ciuin has moved the publication of Petty Theft up to a high priority and promised herself she will get it out this year.

Education

Semicolons are not as common in fiction as in scholarly writing, and particularly rare in dialog.  They can be downright controversial.  James Scott Bell apparently would ban semicolons but he got comments on both sides.  Beth Hill discusses the nuances of different sentence constructions and argues that sometimes the semicolon is the right choice.

Here’s some advice on other punctuation marks, the hyphen and dashes. Here’s more on dashes, and a powerpoint presentation on punctuation marks.

Upcoming Schedule

Jan 28
Bill W.
Ciuin

Feb 4
Nick
Bill H.

Feb 11
Greg
Aime W.

Feb 18
Randy
Ciuin

Feb 25
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill