Monthly Archives: October 2019

The Noble Pen for Oct 31, 2019

Education

See older newsletters for many educational topics.

Victories

Aime wrote a new short story. Her web content writing is turning into regular work.

Shannon hit 40k words on his story. He found a new coffee shop to write at.

Ciuin turned in more school papers, but only got B’s.

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 31
Troy
Aime
Ciuin

Nov 7
Randy
Ciuin
Open slot

Nov 14
Nick
Dylan?
Rachel

Nov 21
open slots

Nov 28
Thanksgiving – no meeting

Dec 5
open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for Oct 24, 2019

Education

See older newsletters for many educational topics.

Victories

Attendance is up.  In the past three meetings we’ve had 11, 7, and 10 people.

Dylan posted two short stories and got a community award for them. He broke writers block on Raging Alone.

Aime completed writing a web site.  She wrote a candidate summary for a voters’ guide.

Ryan made his first submission and survived the critique, and bought a printer.

Ciuin turned in two major school papers ON TIME.

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 24
Shannon
Ciuin
Ryan

Oct 31
Troy
Aime
Ciuin

Nov 7
Randy
open slots

Nov 14
Nick
Dylan?
open slots

Nov 21
open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for Oct 17, 2019

Education

Thanks to Shannon for this item:
So, we have some new writers, and Rachel was asking about submitting short stories, I thought I’d throw out some general information. Not comprehensive, but somewhere to start.

First, there are a huge number of people out there trying to scam authors. There used to be a site called “Predators and Editors,” but they seem to be on hiatus. I did find this on the SFWA website. https://www.sfwa.org/other-resources/for-authors/writer-beware/

Also QueryTracker.net has publisher information and active forums. https://querytracker.net

As far as places to get your work published, I don’t know as much about that. However:

Googling “Short fiction markets” might find some answers. You might want to add the keyword pay or paying to that. Some only offer two copies of the magazine as payment.

There is a book called “Writer’s Market.” Before the internet, they were the best source to find places to submit. They come out with a new edition each year, and the common consensus is the book is worth reading in Barnes and Noble or the library, but not worth the price tag. (Though I see it now sells for $20. I think it used to be much higher.)

As far as how to submit, I like Robert J Sawyer’s Manuscript Checklist https://sfwriter.com/mschklst.htm and sample manuscript https://sfwriter.com/ms.pdf They are a little antiquated now; for instance, “Disposable Copy” isn’t really necessary anymore as most submissions are electronic and Times and Calibri are more expected than Courier typeface now, but it gets across what professionals expect. Some editors/agents do ask for very specific things to weed out those who aren’t serious, so it never hurts to check their website for guidelines. Usually they expect Word Docx format, as the industry kind of runs on Word, but some will take or even prefer PDFs.

Victories

Aime got a website writing job. She posted a review of a movie.

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 17
Aime
Troy
Ryan

Oct 24
open slots

Oct 31
open slots

Nov 7
open slots

Nov 14
Nick
open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

The Noble Pen for Oct 10, 2019

Education

See older newsletters for many educational topics.

Victories

Ciuin got an A on another school paper.
Rachel plotted a new story.
Troy made his first submission and survived the critique.
Shannon submitted his piece for the workshop at the November Iowa ICON science fiction convention.

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 10
Shannon
Aime
Rachel

Oct 17
open slots

Oct 24
open slots

Oct 31
open slots

Nov 7
open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill