Next Noble Pen Meeting

July 6th, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

The summer edition of Science Fiction News is available.

Victories

Aime’s son started writing a novel.

Dylan is adding to Second Hand Dresses, and planning stories for three commissions.

Education

One of the things an author can do to improve their work is to go over a piece looking for ways to tighten the sentences.  Often a change will express the meaning more clearly and with smoother flow.

For example, why say “his habit of spending wastefully” when you can say “his extravagance”, or replace “the car drove haltingly and noisily down the street” with “the car lumbered” or “the car hiccoughed down the street” instead?  This site offers more exercises with suggested answers.

Here’s another good discussion with examples of cutting extra words.  This site has good ideas, but (for shame) has a run-on in the intro note.

Upcoming Schedule

July 6
Nick
Aime
exercise

July 13
Open slots

July 20
Laura
Aime
Open slot

July 27
Open slots

August 3
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

June 29th, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

A controversial law in California regulates sale of autographed items, with the intention of reducing trafficking in counterfeits. (text of bill)  It wasn’t intended to affect stores selling books autographed by the authors, but they need to pay attention to what comes out of the dispute and lawsuits.

Victories

Dylan rewrote seven chapters and added a new one for Second Hand Dresses. He got a story commission.

Education

The Guide to Grammar and Style, by Jack Lynch at Rutgers, offers advice on a wide variety of topics.  His disregard for absolute rules is interesting.

If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.  ~Katharine Hepburn

It’s not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them. ~T.S. Eliot

Upcoming Schedule

Jun 29 (6,000 word slots)
Dylan
Bill
exercise

July 6
Nick
Aime
Open slot

July 13
Open slots

July 20
Open slots

July 27
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

June 22nd, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Sometimes critique can be hard to take.  This essay discusses critics in politics and art.

Victories

Dylan finished and published Sand and Bone.  He is serializing Second Hand Dresses.  He got a story commission.

Education

Writers use sentences as building blocks for a story.  Good sentence construction helps the story flow for a reader.   With experience, good sentence structure can become intuitive to a writer, but untrained intuition sometimes goes astray.  This excellent explanation shows how sentences break down into their parts.

Another site gives many examples.  Here’s another tutorial on breaking down a sentence to see its structure.  It introduces diagramming as a useful tool.

Upcoming Schedule

Jun 22
Laura
Aime
Dylan

Jun 29
Uriah
Open slots

July 6
Nick
Open slots

July 13
Open slots

July 20
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

Jun 15th, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Alan Alda discusses the need to be clear and his book about failures to communicate.

Victories

Randy’s book now has three reviews, all five-star .  It was selected for a local book club to read and he will discuss it at their meeting.

Shannon was asked to write a short story for an anthology.

Education

The site Creative Writing Forums is a place for writers to discuss techniques, problems, etc. and do critiques of short segments of writing.  It seems fairly civilized.  Some participation and two weeks of membership are required before you can post anything to receive critique.

If you’re looking for more elbows to rub against, want to see how others do critique,  or want to discuss writing with a wide group, give it or other forums a try.  It is a good place to practice giving critiques anonymously and to compare your observations to others’.

Recognize that anything you post to a forum with unrestricted membership has been published (even if it is later deleted), so restrict your submissions to excerpts or practice pieces that you will never try to sell.

If you have other sites to recommend, let us know.

–//–

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Art is knowing which ones to keep.  ~Scott Adams

Upcoming Schedule

Jun 15
Aime
Dylan
Grammar exercise

Jun 22
Laura
Open slots

Jun 29
Uriah
Open slots

July 6
Nick
Open slots

July 13
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

Jun 8th, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

The Economist magazine looks at the relationship between the “Doomsday Clock” (Source) (Wikipedia) and the amount of apocalyptic fiction written.

Victories

Dylan rewrote six chapters of Flight and edited others.  He read six books recently and wrote GoodReads reviews of them.

Nick edited Earth Ends and finished a chapter and more on a sequel.  He wrote a train report.

Education

Georgina Roy has created a guide to the process of writing a novel.  Campbell and Cook discuss planning to make your novel marketable.  Randy Ingermanson discusses his Snowflake Method of building a story.

Upcoming Schedule

Jun 8
Uriah
Dakota
Nick

Jun 15
Aime
Open slots

Jun 22
Open slots

Jun 29
Open slots

July 6
Nick
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill