We will meet at someone’s home at 7 pm, and the address will be in the distribution email. Use the contact form if you need me to add you to the distribution.

Discord and Meetups for Noble Pen

The Discord app provides another way for us to discuss. If you want to check it out, ask for an invitation link that will let you join. Also look for Creative Writing on Meetups.com for Cedar Rapids and make us look active there.

Writing Victories

1. Xander scored a box of books on writing that the Coe Writing Center was giving away. He even found one that was actually a Coe library book that needed to be returned, which he did. “The librarian looked at me like I’d grown two heads.”

Reading Victories

1. Xander gave one of his courses an assignment to memorize 250 words that they then had to recite to the class. The average grade was “A.” One student presented the poison scene from “Princess Bride.” Another student presented a German fairy tale, “Devil’s Garlic,” in her native tongue.

2. Enzo watched “Hedge Knight,” a TV series based on a George R.R. Martin book by the same name. It was not part of his “Game of Thrones” series.

Personal Victories

1. Jeff’s puppy now looks at the door before peeing in the house.

Literary News

Mar 5
Xander
Robyn
open slot

Mar 12
Ted
Ciuin
Xander

Mar 19
Robyn
open slots

Mar 26
open slots

Keep Writing!
Robyn

We will meet at someone’s home at 7 pm, and the address will be in the distribution email. Use the contact form if you need me to add you to the distribution.

Discord and Meetups for Noble Pen

The Discord app provides another way for us to discuss. If you want to check it out, ask for an invitation link that will let you join. Also look for Creative Writing on Meetups.com for Cedar Rapids and make us look active there.

Writing Victories

1. David received positive feedback on his novel from a second co-worker who has read it.

2. Ciuin made major changes to the plot of “Bishop’s Decoy,” the current vampire novel she’s working on.

Reading Victories

Personal Victories

Literary News

Bill read a study done that compared a handful of short stories written by AI and an equal number of short stories written by real people. Readers were then asked to rate them, best to worse, and determine which were AI generated and which were written by humans. The results were mixed, in that some of the AI written stories were ranked highly, and not all of the readers successfully identified which were AI generated and which weren’t.

Feb 26
Jeff
Enzo
Ted

Mar 5
Xander
Robyn
open slot

Mar 12
Ted
Ciuin
Robyn

Mar 19
open slots

Mar 26
open slots

Keep Writing!
Robyn

We will meet at someone’s home at 7 pm, and the address will be in the distribution email. Use the contact form if you need me to add you to the distribution.

Discord and Meetups for Noble Pen

The Discord app provides another way for us to discuss. If you want to check it out, ask for an invitation link that will let you join. Also look for Creative Writing on Meetups.com for Cedar Rapids and make us look active there.

Writing Victories

1. Enzo, Bill, Xander, Adriana, Jeff, and David all wrote fabulous pieces using the three, unrelated words. The consensus is that Adriana cheated a bit by using teeth instead of tooth, and bicentennial instead of centennial. But she also gets credit for writing her piece a week ahead of time, along with submitting two pages. Xander took the prize in the longest submission at over 700 words.

2. David gave a co-worker a copy of his Forks Crossing book to read and the reader liked it.

Reading Victories

Personal Victories

1. The Mayo Clinic has developed a medical reason for all of Karen’s (Bill’s wife) symptoms, something that was not accomplished with local doctors!

Literary News

Feb 19
David
Ciuin
Robyn

Feb 26
Jeff
Enzo
Ted

Mar 5
Robyn
open slots

Mar 12
open slots

Mar 19
open slots

Keep Writing!
Robyn

We will meet at someone’s home at 7 pm, and the address will be in the distribution email. Use the contact form if you need me to add you to the distribution.

Discord and Meetups for Noble Pen

The Discord app provides another way for us to discuss. If you want to check it out, ask for an invitation link that will let you join. Also look for Creative Writing on Meetups.com for Cedar Rapids and make us look active there.

Writing Victories

1. Dyland wrote 7,000 words on his current commission project.
2. Adriana already has her two pages written for our use-three-words exercise for this week.
3. I did a significant amount of world building for my “Peter and the Dragon” middle grade series I plan to write.

Reading Victories

Jeff finished reading “Hail Mary” and has started “The Invisible Live of Addie LaRue.”

Literary News

Brandon Sanderson is writing the screenplay to his “Misborn” books for Apple TV+.

Feb 12
Everyone is invited to submit 1-2 pages using the following three, unrelated words: tooth, centennial, and disturbance. We are doing this as a fun exercise. The point is not to critique, but to explore the writing process we each have and stretch our creative brains a bit. The group did this last fall and had a lot of fun with it. The words were chosen by Adriana’s daughters off of a Christmas word wreath they had.

Feb 19
David
Ciuin
Robyn

Feb 26
Jeff
Enzo
Ted

Mar 5
Robyn
open slots

Mar 12
open slots

Mar 19
open slots

Keep Writing!
Robyn

We will meet at someone’s home at 7 pm, and the address will be in the distribution email. Use the contact form if you need me to add you to the distribution.

Discord and Meetups for Noble Pen

The Discord app provides another way for us to discuss. If you want to check it out, ask for an invitation link that will let you join. Also look for Creative Writing on Meetups.com for Cedar Rapids and make us look active there.

Victories

1. Dylan started writing on the commissioned project he was awarded.
2. Jeff is currently reading “Hail Mary Project,” which is currently being filmed. He has set a goal of reading twelve books this year. However, he has to be careful what he choses because he’s found it affects his own writing.
3. Adriana is nine movies in to her goal of watching 100 of them in 2026.

Feb 5
Jeff
Dylan
Ciuin

Feb 12
Everyone may submit, using three words listed in the email

Feb 19
open slots

Feb 26
open slots

Mar 5
open slots

Keep Writing,
Robyn

We will meet at someone’s home at 7 pm, and the address will be in the distribution email. Use the contact form if you need me to add you to the distribution.

Discord and Meetups for Noble Pen

The Discord app provides another way for us to discuss. If you want to check it out, ask for an invitation link that will let you join. Also look for Creative Writing on Meetups.com for Cedar Rapids and make us look active there.

Victories

Jan 29
Robyn
Dylan
open slot

Feb 5
Jeff
open slots

Feb 12
open slots

Feb 19
open slots

Feb 26
open slots

Keep Writing,
Robyn

We will meet at someone’s home at 7 pm, and the address will be in the distribution email. Use the contact form if you need me to add you to the distribution.

Discord and Meetups for Noble Pen

The Discord app provides another way for us to discuss. If you want to check it out, ask for an invitation link that will let you join. Also look for Creative Writing on Meetups.com for Cedar Rapids and make us look active there.

Victories

There probably were some, but not listed.
Jan 22
Dylan
Jeff
Robyn

Jan 29
Robyn
Dylan
open slot

Feb 5
Jeff
open slots

Feb 12
open slots

Feb 19
open slots

Keep Writing,
Robyn

We will meet at someone’s home at 7 pm, and the address will be in the distribution email. Use the contact form if you need me to add you to the distribution.

Discord and Meetups for Noble Pen

The Discord app provides another way for us to discuss. If you want to check it out, ask for an invitation link that will let you join. Also look for Creative Writing on Meetups.com for Cedar Rapids and make us look active there.

Victories

1. Aime wrote 6,000 words on a new project: a comic book. She’s submitting it to a contest and if she’s selected, she’ll work with an illustrator to complete the project and be paid.
2. Jeff completed reading “Anna Karenina,” “Les Miserable,” and “The Scarlet Letter” over the break.
3. David has resolved to finish his novel this year.

Jan 15
Aime
Xander
Robyn

Jan 29
Jeff
Ciuin
open spot

Feb 5
open slots

Feb 12
open slots

Keep Writing,
Robyn

We will meet at someone’s home at 7 pm, and the address will be in the distribution email. Use the contact form if you need me to add you to the distribution.

Discord and Meetups for Noble Pen

The Discord app provides another way for us to discuss. If you want to check it out, ask for an invitation link that will let you join. Also look for Creative Writing on Meetups.com for Cedar Rapids and make us look active there.

Victories

We’re celebrating several victories this week!
1. Xander finally got rid of his outdated desktop computer, replaced it with a laptop, and now has a dedicated writing space. To celebrate his new found freedom, he did his critiques digitally this week.
2. Ted got his Christmas letters out.
3. Dylan bagged a commission for a fan fiction piece-anime from the 1980’s-for about 10,000 words. It will earn him roughly $1,000.
4. Robyn pulled out a middle grade book she finished about four years ago, refreshed it, and plans to have it up on Amazon by the end of February. It is designed to be a chapter series featuring a host of forest critters. The first book introduces an owl family.

We also have several pieces of literary news.
1. Amazon has been publishing more and more books written completely by AI and many authors are pushing back, unhappy with that trend.
2. Bill is finding that much AI-created content in newsfeeds and specifically YouTube are not accurate. His caution is to always check any facts AI presents the reader with.
3. Xander read that non-fiction sales are in a slump for the first time in a decade. Part of that is due to podcasts, which are free, as opposed to books, which cost. The other reason is that people, in general, are looking for escapism. Therefore, fiction markets are expanding. Good for us fiction writers! Romance, historically the biggest sellers, continues to gain traction.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!

Schedule

Jan 8
Aime
David
Jeff

Jan 15
Aime
Xander
Robyn

Jan 22
open slots

Jan 29
open slots

Feb 5
open slots

Keep Writing,
Robyn

We will meet at someone’s home at 7 pm, and the address will be in the distribution email. Use the contact form if you need me to add you to the distribution.

Discord and Meetups for Noble Pen

The Discord app provides another way for us to discuss. If you want to check it out, ask for an invitation link that will let you join. Also look for Creative Writing on Meetups.com for Cedar Rapids and make us look active there.

Victories

We avoided potential catastrophe by not driving in the snow.

Schedule

Dec. 18
Ted
Dylan
Xander

Dec 25
Christmas-No meeting

Jan 1
New Year Day – No meeting

Jan 8
Aime
David
Jeff

Jan 15
Aime
Xander
open slot

Keep Writing,
Robyn