Next Noble Pen Meeting

December 6th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Tyree points out an opportunity for submitting to a self-styled pulp publisher named Pro Se Press. (Pro Se, prose, get it?)  They publish stories about otherwise unknown superheroes, explorers, werewolves, Men’s Men and Femme Fatales.  Go to their blog page and scroll down to Nov 18 for details of a current opening, and here for other openings.

Victories

Tyree reports his Sams Dot division of White Cat Publications has five titles out as ebooks and sales are good, with WC asking them to get more out in e-formats.

Education

Do you understand the usage of raise and rise?  Since and because?  Insure or ensure?  Several other pairs of confusing words are linked in the first article.

Kites rise highest against the wind – not with it.  ~Winston Churchill

The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments.  ~Gustave Flaubert

Upcoming Schedule

Dec 6th

Nick
Ciuin
Janice

Dec 13th
(Note other large group at restaurant, we squeeze in corner.)
Tyree
Ciuin
Aimee

Dec20th

Tyree?
Open slots

Dec27th

Open slots

Keep Writing,

Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

November 29th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Philip Roth, now approaching 80, announced that his is done writing novels after a career of over 50 years.

Amazon lists their editors’ top picks from 2012.  They also offer lists by category, such as Kindle publications.

Christopher McManus wrote in the Annals of Improbable Research about the psychological and medical conditions found in fictional characters, from Dracula to Snow White, with a long bibliography from more serious journals.

Education

Here’s an article on how to get published, and another on how to get your book publisized.

Publishing is a business. Writing may be art, but publishing, when all is said and done, comes down to dollars.  ~Nicholas Sparks

Most writers have totally unrealistic concepts of how publishing works. ~Jim Harrison

To read a book, to think it over, and to write out notes is a useful exercise; a book which will not repay some hard thought is not worth publishing.  ~Maria Mitchell

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it. ~Mark Twain

Upcoming Schedule

Nov 29th

Aimee
Tyree
Ciuin

Dec 6th

Nick
Tyree (unless someone needs slot)
Ciuin ?

Dec 13th

Open slots

Dec20th

Open slots

Dec27th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

November 29th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Most employers are giving their people a four-day weekend to work on their writing.   So as to not interfere with that, we will not meet on Thanksgiving Day.

Please check the review schedule as given below and let me know if it needs to change.

-//-

Welcome to Janice, who found the group.

Victories

Tyree got a lot of good research info about the airplane used in his story.  He had a good trip to the Memphis ComiCon and talked with three publishers who asked him to submit.  His proudest moment there was when Mickey Zucher Reichert, a major writer of SF&F, told him she loved his book she had bought in a prior meeting.

Dylan found a beta reader for his weekly serial.  He finished a story.  His work sold enough on Amazon that he got a check.

Nick finished an edit pass on his sci fi story.

Ciuin presented at two conferences and was asked to write two articles on presentation of Romani in museums.  One would be in a scholarly magazine that will look very good on a resume.  She visited the Holocaust Museum in Skokie where she gave them several historical corrections to their displays and met the curator.  She will write something for their use.  And she got the long-awaited feedback on Petty Theft from her editor, with several good suggestions.

Education

Writers Digest offers some lists:

What Bestsellers Do Differently Than Everyone Else

Top 10 Ways to Stay True to Yourself in Publishing

Top 10 Pieces of Advice for Writers

And, finally, a lighthearted look at distractions from writing.

Upcoming Schedule

Nov 22nd

Thanksgiving – no meeting

Nov 29th

Aimee
Tyree
Ciuin

Dec 6th

Nick
Tyree (unless others need slot)
Ciuin ?

Dec 13th

Open slots

Dec20th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

November 8th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Random House and Penguin are negotiating a merger.  Together, they control a quarter of the US book market.

Victories

Dylan reports that an anthology came out that includes his submission.

Shannon’s Fangs For Nothing arrived in its first print edition.

Aimee was ready to start writing for NaNoWriMo at 10 pm on Nov 1.

Education

Writers differ in how they go about revisions – do you go back frequently or wait until the draft is done?  Rachel Scheller  describes four approaches.

Read what several famous writers said about revisions.

And here’s some revision advice from the University of North Carolina.

Half my life is an act of revision. ~John Irving

I don’t write a quick draft and then revise; instead, I work slowly page by page, revising and polishing.  ~Dean Koontz

Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing. ~Bernard Malamud

Upcoming Schedule

Nov 8th

Dylan, double slot (conclusion of BAM)
Aimee

Nov 15th

Tyree
Nick
Open slots

Nov 22nd

Thanksgiving – no meeting

Nov 29th

Open slots

Dec 6th

Open slots

Keep Writing,

Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

November 1st, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

Greg Lukianoff writes that free speech is endangered on college campuses, of all places.

Victories

Dylan had an exciting week.  He got his first check from Amazon for sales.  He finished the end of Becoming A Man.

Then someone thought his serial was good enough to plagiarize 18 chapters, changing the title and names but not much else.  He got distribution of the copy stopped.

And Casting Call was recommended on GoodReads, so he put a new cover on it and made it available through them and Smashwords.

Tyree reports proudly that one of the authors who has been with  Sams Dot “graduated” to the bigger scene by having a novel picked up by an agent in London.

Education

There’s no shortage of people interested in writing the great American novel.  Last year 250,000 people started NaNoWriMo, and about 1 in 7 wrote 50,000 words of a novel.  With competition like that, you gotta be good to get anywhere.  Keep improving.

–//–

Feel like your life is not bringing you interesting ideas for writing?  Elizabeth Sims suggests doing a few things out of your comfort zone to bring on new ideas and knowledge.  Just think it through and don’t risk more than you can stand to lose.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing. ~Warren Buffett

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.  ~George Bernard Shaw

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.  ~Jim Rohn

Upcoming Schedule

Nov 1st

Nick
Tyree story 1
Tyree story 2 or more of 1

Nov 8th

Dylan, double slot (conclusion of BAM)
Open slot

Nov 15th

Tyree
Nick
Open slots

Nov 22nd
Open slots

Keep Writing,

Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 25th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Victories

Dylan received three form rejections.  He didn’t let that discourage him; he submitted Flight to the Harper Voyager opening.

Shannon got a five-star review on Amazon for Minion.

Ciuin wrote a class paper today that she thinks is good, and for the first time in quite a while she didn’t let a former teacher’s discouraging words hold her back.

Education

Backups are vital.  You will need one when you are least prepared.  Some people consider it necessary to have at least three copies of any important work, for instance on the working computer, on a flash drive, and on a cloud storage service.

One such cloud service is Dropbox, which offers 2 Gbytes for free, keeps a couple old versions of things that are replaced, allows you to share selected folders with people by giving them a password, and also provides synchronization if you set it up on multiple computers.  There are other similar services.

Setting it up on your computer with this referral link will get both you and me some extra storage space compared to just going to the site and signing up (or ask one of your friends for a referral and help them).

/—/

Don’t quit your day job.  This article shows that even optimistic estimates of writing success, like making the NY Times Best Seller list, aren’t enough to live on.

/—/

Do you have to have inspiration from real people to create characters?  Robert J. Sawyer argues that you shouldn’t have to, but the idea of totally making them up goes against something deep inside us.

Another essayist does not like to read fiction in which real people are recognizable, even aside from the legal problems an author may encounter.

Here are ten famous characters modeled on real people.  And this article gives some examples, but lists several reasons why you usually shouldn’t.

I never tell who it is I base my character quirks on in case they get offended, but I do base them on real people. As an actor I see myself a bit like a sponge where I absorb peoples different characteristics. It makes my characters on screen more realistic. ~Emily Blunt

In the theater there is often a tension, almost a contradiction, between the way real people would think and behave, and a kind of imposed dramaticness. ~Tom Stoppard

I’m very drawn to characters who are very flawed. I’m less interested in characters who are just good or bad, because to me then they’re not real people. ~Rachel Weisz

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 25th

Tyree
Dylan
Ciuin

Nov 1st

Nick
Tyree
Dylan

Nov 8th

Tyree
Open slots

Nov 15th

Nick
Open slots

Keep Writing,

Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 18th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Victories

Aimee is planning for NaNoWriMo.

Dylan finished his commission.  He plans to send Flight to the Harper Voyager call for submissions.

Ciuin got a public apology from a professor.

Nick saw a remarkable train, the twin Nebraska Zephyr set, with 1936 era cars.  Will it show up in a story?

Education

J. A. Konrath is offering a 1,000 page book, a collection of his postings on how to be a writer, The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, as a free download PDF or cheap Kindle book on his web site.

–x–

A cynical look at Understanding On-line Star Ratings.

Upcoming Schedule

Oct 18th

Dylan
Shannon
Nick

Oct 25th

Tyree
Dylan
Ciuin

Nov 1st

Nick
Tyree
Open slots

Nov 8th

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 11th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Victories

Dylan hit the one year anniversary on his weekly serial at 350,000 words.  He  is going to stop taking commission work and concentrate on his own writing.

Tyree finished his entry for next week. He is working on a book that involves Romani characters.

Ciuin is back in touch with her editor/mentor.  She was asked to be the technical adviser for Romani culture in Tyree’s next book.

Education

Brian Klems tries to explain the difference between a writer’s voice and style.  Steve Thompson goes to greater length on the subject, but sums it up as:

The voice is the word choice and method of speaking and thinking as demonstrated by characters, while style is much more broad.

Randy Ingermanson links style to “writing patterns” and voice to “attitude”.

Wikipedia also has articles on writer’s voice and writing style.  After reading these and some other articles, I’m still not sure I get it.  They seem to overlap and many sources’ explanations of one make reference to the other.

–x–

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn. ~Gore Vidal

To understand a literary style, consider what it omits. ~Mason Cooley

Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward. ~Robert Frost

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us. ~Nietzsche

Everyone who wills can hear the inner voice. It is within everyone. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Upcoming Schedule

Oct  11th

Tyree
Dylan
Mark

Oct  18th

Dylan
Shannon
Nick

Oct  25th

Tyree
Dylan
Open slot

Nov 1st

Open slots

Keep Writing,
Bill

Next Noble Pen Meeting

October 4th, 2012 at 7 pm

Scott’s Family Restaurant

1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

News

The University of Arizona has initiated a program of bringing together scientists and SF writers.  Some of them bemoan a lack of optimistic visions for the future, and hope that these meetings may encourage optimism.

Victories

Dylan’s submission to an anthology was accepted.  He tracks his career writing total and has now exceeded two million words.

Ciuin got an A on her first class paper of the semester.

Education

At the last meeting a discussion mentioned Kickstarter (site)(Details)(Wikipedia), a mechanism for “crowd funding” or collecting money from a wide audience to fund a creative project.  It is one of a number of similar operations (comparison).

The total overhead cost is 8 to 10%.   Project creators choose a deadline and a goal minimum of funds to raise. If the chosen goal is not gathered by the deadline, no funds are collected.

To encourage donations, the creator can offer rewards at various levels of donation, and might be a copy of the work produced (e.g., ebook at one level, print book at another, cover art poster, meeting the project creator, or a professional service like editing).  It can be thought of as a promise by the contributor to buy the end product, but there is no guarantee that the project will be completed, or completed to any standard of quality.

A large number of projects have been funded and some have won awards.  Top projects have had tens of thousands of donors and raised millions of dollars.

A book project with interviews of SF writers about how they work is an example of a project successfully funded, and illustrates various levels of reward.

–x–

Upcoming Schedule

Oct  4th

Nick
Mark
Ciuin

Oct  11th

Tyree
Dylan
Mark

Oct  18th

Dylan
Shannon
Open slot

Oct  25th

Open slots

Keep Writing,

Bill