Monthly Archives: June 2016

The Noble Pen for June 30, 2016

Next Noble Pen Meeting

June 30th, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

When sending submissions, be sure to click REPLY ALL.  Your moderator may not always catch when you reply only to him so other people do not receive your submissions.

Victories

Ciuin wrote more on Chessmaster.  Her client for Writing Fairy service has finished the story and Ciuin is finishing her critiques.

Dylan got over setbacks to make progress in publishing Sand and Blood.  A reader for one of his alternate byline stories liked it so much they commissioned a short sequel.

Aime was in a newspaper article because of her discussion in the city council.

Stacie got promo material for her book and a Square app so she can take credit cards when selling it.

Education

Many tools can help with the initial editing of your story by pointing out things a human might miss.  MS Word includes a grammar checker.  As with any tool, it isn’t always right but will point out things to consider.  A quick on-line search finds many tool offerings, free or for sale.

ProWritingAid offers free registration for their on-line proofreading tool that checks many aspects of your writing. They also sell tools.   You paste a section of your text into the free version window, click submit and analyze, and it reports over-used words, sentences of monotonously same length or excessive length, cliches, repeated phrases, alliteration, and other things you may want to consider changing.  It also highlights dialog tags so you can see at a glance what you used.

It helped me a lot, but became tedious after I changed the major offenses.  My biggest complaint is that it reports too much.  I even tried a better writer’s material with the same result.  The highlighting of repeated common 2-word phrases, 2-word alliterations, etc. (like “to town” or “an apple”) results in clutter that hides the things I want to find and change.  The homonym finder is a nice idea but appears to have no context sensitivity so you see ALL of them.

The author of Writer’s Diet offers a free on-line tool for evaluating your writing.  While not as extensive as Pro Writing Aid, another view is often useful.

Grammarly is a free browser add-on that says it checks whatever you type in your browser and is context sensitive.   One of our members uses it and finds the free version somewhat helpful but it has aggressive nagging to buy the upgrade.

There are also on-line forums where you can post work for critique by others, gain experience in doing critiques, and discuss writing topics.  One is writingforums.org where you have to do some critiques during a waiting period before you can post your own work.  An issue with such forums is that postings may be “publication,” so it is best to only post small samples.

Does anyone have recommendations for other tools?

Upcoming Schedule

June 30
Ciuin
Aime
Randy

July 7
Nick
Aime
Stacie

July 14
Ciuin
Mark
Open slot

July 21
Randy
Ciuin
Laura

July 28
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for June 23, 2016

Next Noble Pen Meeting

June 23rd, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Everybody seemed to like the idea of having three reviews per week until we work off some of the backlog, but only with a 4,000 word limit per submission.  Please check the schedule as juggled around for this purpose, to see that you are okay with your current assignment.

The need to break chapters to stay near or under 4000 words is going to be a recurring problem for some people, and that doesn’t allow for best critiques.   We may have to start allocating words, not just slots.  If you need more than 4000, we can try to borrow from other submitters who have shorter pieces.

Victories

Dylan got an updated blurbs for his books and is ordering a proof of the Sand & Blood cover.

Ciuin is writing (and it’s not school papers).

Education

A college lists five myths about writing.  Veronica Sicoe has a list of thirteen falsehoods about writing.   Renée Rosen offers her list of myths that she finds to be true and/or false, and some productivity tips.

Upcoming Schedule

June 23
Stacie
Randy
Dylan

June 30
Ciuin
Aime
Open slot

July 7
Nick
Aime
Open slot

July 14
Ciuin
Mark
Laura

July 21
Randy
Ciuin
Open slot

July 28
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for June 16, 2016

Next Noble Pen Meeting

June 16th, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

A rumor says the public library in Fort Dodge is looking for Iowa authors for a book fair.  A brief search failed to find information, so if you have details let us know.

–//–

We’ve developed quite a backlog of material for review, with the schedule currently filled 5.5 weeks out.  Should we go back to doing three reviews per week?

Victories

Dylan has a patron for his alternate byline.  He has made progress toward getting Sand and Ash published.

Cassie joined a 500-person Facebook group to promote her book.  She is near 30k (out of expected 35-40) on the sequel.  She incorporated edits on 10k words back from her editor.

Shannon was invited to a book fair in Clinton, Iowa on August 27th.

Education

When writing a story set in a real-world prior time, your research doesn’t guarantee the reader will feel immersed in the time.  Alison Love offers some advice that may help.

Upcoming Schedule

Jun 16
Aime
Ciuin

June 23
Stacie
Randy
Dylan

June 30
Ciuin
Aime
Open slot

July 7
Nick
Open slots

July 14
Ciuin
Mark
Laura

July 21
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for June 9, 2016

Next Noble Pen Meeting

June 9th, 2016 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

It’s here – a “library” with no books, just electronic ways to access information.

Victories

Dylan was on panels at WISCON and got blurbs for his books.  He finished a weekly serial.
Stacie and Dylan are to participate in an Iowa Authors book signing on July 16.

Education

A self-published author talks about how self-publishing isn’t easy or cheap to do well.  Here’s one person’s overview of the options and processes.  And someone who had three conventionally published books and found self-publishing to be a dismal failure.  And finally, some advice on problems and solutions.

Upcoming Schedule

Jun 9
Shannon
Barbara

Jun 16
Aime
Ciuin

June 23
Stacie
Randy

June 30
Ciuin
Dylan

July 7
Nick
Aime

July 14
Ciuin
Open slot

Keep Writing,
Bill