Next Noble Pen Meeting

August 10th, 2017 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Don’t forget the book signing at Lindale Mall on Saturday August 5.

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An author ponders differing opinions on what a writer should keep.

Victories

Randy received a request to talk with a reviewer from the Gazette.

Education

Many computer tools are available to help writers, going beyond basic word processing.  Here’s a list of eighty tools.  Here’s another ten, including some that you might not have thought of as writers’ tools.  Some are free and some are expensive.

A free on-line tool will evaluate 100 to 1000 word samples of your writing at the sentence level to see if the proportions of verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, etc. are reasonable.   It’s not very picky, so if you get long colored bars you’d better pay attention.

Pro Writing Aid is a much more extensive tool.  You have to create a free account to try it (and probably get related ads).  It gives a thorough analysis of your writing, including overused words, echo words, sentence length issues, cliches, grammar, etc.  Subscription is $40/year, but even the free version (limited word count) can be an eye-opener and quite useful.

Upcoming Schedule

August 10
Shannon
Ciuin
Exercise

August 17
Randy
Dakota
Uriah

August 24
Open slots

August 31
Open slots

September 7
Nick
Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill