Noble Pen Meeting

December 3rd, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Give a man a fire and keep him warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he will be warm for rest of his life.
–Terry Pratchett, Jingo

I have tried to respect history and geography wherever doing so served my purposes as a novelist, but wherever it did not I have, cheerfully or with regret, ignored them
–Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Author’s Note

Victories

As of the writing of this email, I have Nanoed 46,000 words and have three days left. I also sent out some query letters and got some uncomplicated rejections, one of which said, I was “too far out there.” They don’t know the half of it.

Also, I saw Max Allen Collins last weekend at Mystery Cat Books. I put myself on their waiting list so I can be more pro-active in getting out information about their guests so we can support our local bookstore.

George’s dreams of becoming a real employee may be coming true. But every time he uses windows, his nose grows.

News

Last week, I found Genreality, a multi-author blog focusing on making schlubs like us better writers.

That was quick. Barnes and Noble has already sold it’s holiday supply of Nooks.

Who says guilds are useless. The RWA got Harlequin to take the Harlequin name off of their horribly ill-conceived vanity press branch.

Upcoming Schedule

Thursday, December 3rd. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Shannon – Hard Luck, Chapter Eight. I should have this on my website by tomorrow night, or email me.

Ciuin – email her. I believe we’re looking at more Petty Theft rewrites?

The Future is wide open

See, I used a line that is a lyrics in a Tom Petty song, but I didn’t link to a youtube video of that song. I really don’t know why.

Keep Writing

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

November 19th, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

That man won’t quit as long as he can still draw a breath. None of my teammates will. Me? I’ve got a different problem. I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard, always taking constant care not to break something, to break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control even for a moment, or someone could die. But you can take it, can’t you, big man? What we have here is a rare opportunity for me to cut loose and show you just how powerful I really am.
—Superman, Justice League Unlimited

Thank You

Sharon Helgens gave a great talk Thursday night about dealing with rejections and submissions, about finding the niche for your writing, and about all the work that goes into writing for the short story market. Hopefully, she can stop by again.

Victories

The Usher’s Ferry people recommended Ciuin to an editor to do a book on Gypsies in Iowa.  She also made a great contact at a Holocaust presentation at the U of I. But she did have some bad news: her GPS unit is making dangerous suggestions.

I have written 20,000 words so far for Nano. I also wrote a 2 page synopsis for Call of the Beast in case agents want it with my queries. My wrists are bleeding. Is this Stigmata? I hope not–I really didn’t like that movie.

Julie finished a scientific paper she is hoping to sell to a medical journal. She explained to us what it was about, but our eyes glazed over, which ironically is one of the symptoms.

News

I found this great web site on fiction tropes.

Amazon has created a PC Kindle app, opening the Kindle market to anyone with a PC, a Kindle or an iPhone. This is great news because some out-of-print books can be obtained for $1 or $2 in the Kindle format–even though it sucks reading on a computer.

Children’s book agents are mean. Okay, maybe harshly realistic would be the fair assessment.

Upcoming Schedule

Thursday, November 19. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm

No Critique

Nanowrimo write-in. Bring your laptop. Stay as long as you want.

Thursday, November 26th, Thanksgiving – no meeting.

Thursday, December 3rd. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Shannon – Hard Luck, Chapter Eight.

Ciuin

Keep Writing

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

November 12th, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

“Correctly formulated, the Law [of Fives] is: All phenomena are directly or indirectly related to the number five, and this relationship can always be demonstrated, given enough ingenuity on the part of the demonstrator.”
-The Illuminatus!

If I were 27 and trying to publish my first novel today I might be tempted to shoot myself.
–John Irving, November 5th, 2009

Victories

Cuiun is doing a modified Nano. She’s also getting an A in Russian, which is probably more like a Pi symbol and a backwards R.

I sent out twelve query letters last week, and I have started Nano. Huh, that’s odd. My eyes are bleeding.

Adam correctly identified the change of seasons.

News

A fifth (5th) Shrek movie is being made. Really.

The controversy over Google Books continues.

The Intern is doing revision tips for the month of November.

Simon and Schuster is allowing reviewers to download their ARCs–that’s Advance Reader Copies in case you don’t know. ARCs are like a rough-cut of the book.

Mike Huckabee has written a book of short stories about Christmas. He will be signing books at the Collins Rd. Barnes and Noble on Sunday.

Upcoming Schedule

Thursday, November 12. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories

No Critique

Talk and reading by Sharon Helgens — See website announcement for more details.

Thursday, November 19. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm

No Critique

Nanowrimo write-in. Bring your laptop. Stay as long as you want.

Thursday, November 26th, Thanksgiving – no meeting.

Thursday, December 3rd. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm

Shannon – Hard Luck, Chapter Eight.

Ciuin

Keep Writing

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

November 5th, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Most writers paragraph for effect, punctuate on impulse, and let split infinitives and comma splices fall where they may. Omnivorous reading substitutes for systematic study. Syntactic nomenclature is a thing they learn only if, somehow trapped into teaching others the craft, they find themselves in need of terms to describe the errors of their students.
––Dwight Swain

Until you do what you believe in, how do you know whether you believe in it or not?
–Leo Tolstoy

Victories

George has obtained permission to use General Fuzz music in his podcasts. I would have gone with Rollins and Shatner muppets.

For an early Halloween party, Ciuin wore a gorilla suit and was subsequently captured by animal control. She can now be seen daily at the St. Louis Zoo. Of course, she could just take off the suit and they would let her go, but she’s too modest.

I pitched PANIC NO MORE to a publisher last weekend and sent the manuscript to him earlier this week. I have chosen a handful of agents to start querying. And I started an author blog. Now, for my encore, I will drink a glass of water whilst singing La Marseillaise, on a unicycle. Then again, maybe not–my French pronunciation sucks.

News

The book market sucks right now. That really isn’t news though, is it?

Upcoming Critiques

Thursday, November 5. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Ciuin

Adam – Chapter 3 for Ardioc

Thursday, November 12. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

No Critique

Talk and reading by Sharon Helgens — See website announcement for more details.

Keep Writing

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

October 29nd, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

“Drinking Zima is something Douglas Coupland would make a character do…. It’d be a device that would allow him to locate the characters in time and a specific sort of culture.”
–Douglas Coupland, jPod

Today’s public figures can no longer write their own speeches or books, and there is some evidence that they can’t read them either.
–Gore Vidal

Victories

George has become involved with European podcaster nerds, who are reading his material on their podcasts. He should be careful though, European nerds are not like American nerds. For instance, this is the American reaction to a broken computer and here is the European reaction. Actually, I believe the European video is the reaction to an IBM 5100 with a bad mainboard.

Ciuin has done most of her writing for school, but she will be performing ghosts stories at Usher’s Scary, Friday and Saturday night. She’s been working hard on her delivery. I hope her story has a Gypsy Witch in it.

I sent a followup letter to an agent which got me a new manuscript request. I didn’t even have to threaten violence to animals.

News

The Barnes and Noble e-reader is not a rumor. It is called the Nook, and they have a video where an attractive woman tells us all about it. It is only one of three e-readers published this week, but it is backed by B&N and if you say Nook e-Reader fast, it sounds funny. It also allows you to lend books to a friend–of course they have to have a Nook too, making you into kind of a Nook-crack dealer.

Wal-Mart, Amazon, Sears, and Target are involved in a book price war, dropping the price of hardcover bestsellers to $9–which is under cost, totally screwing small books stores, and making me say, “Sears sell books?”

Upcoming Critiques

Thursday, October 29nd. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Call of the Beast Query Letter by Shannon, I’ll mail this one out, as it’s a one-off.

George – Podcast material.

Thursday, November 5. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Ciuin

Sometime in the future I am working on getting another author in to speak with us. She gave me a call last night, but I need to check her creds and set up dates. More details to follow.

Keep Writing

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

October 22nd, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

I am a kleptomaniac. I will steal your lamps, mattress, clock radio, even the ice machine from the hallway vending area. I want to tell you about this before I check in so that when you see the room completely empty after I leave you will understand.
– Ted L. Nancy

The show basically revolved around this one officer. “Mad” Dick Robinson. People called him Mad because he was basically insane. I can’t remember if he was actually clinically insane, but people were always questioning his decisions. Mad often blew his top and chewed out some of the other officers, most of whom had unquestionable moral character.But we all know it’s a tough world, the stakes are high out there, and everyone who watched the show held Mad in great regard. I think everyone on the squad grew quite a bitas people, thanks to Mad’s passion.
– Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby

Victories

I emailed the two literary agents who asked for my manuscript and never got back to me. They have still not gotten back to me. I’m sensing a trend.

Ian filled his Hybrid with Wal-Mart gas and his getting 3 MPG less, although he admits it might have been because the gas was a winter mix, which is, of course, standard unleaded gasoline mixed with reindeer blood.

Wendy passed her Russian mid-term & Language in Society midterm. She is working on a 12 page paper. She finished her City Revealed articles during midterms and she finished her Usher’s Scary program. Plus it was her twentieth wedding anniversary this week. She will align the planets and bring them into universal harmony, allowing meaningful contact with all forms of life from extra terrestrials to common household pets.

News

Nanowrimo is only two weeks away. Mark your calendar if you have trouble finding November 1st.

Gizmodo has photos of what it believes to be the new Barnes and Noble ebook reader.

J. A. Konrath goes through six months earnings. Yes, someday, as a professional author, you may make as much as $16,000 a year.

Upcoming Critiques

Thursday, October 22nd. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Hard Luck by Shannon, Chapter Seven–go to http://shannonryan.net/user and enter username:noblepen and password:nblpn or ask me for a copy. It should be up by Saturday night, Sunday at the latest.

Ciuin – Petty Theft chapter

Thursday, October 22nd. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Open

Keep Writing

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

October 15th, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

You need not expect to get your book right the first time. Go to work and revamp or rewrite it. God only exhibits his thunder and lightning at intervals, and so they always command attention. These are God’s adjectives. You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.
– Mark Twain

Victories

I wrote a sixty-seven word sentence yesterday. My goal is 140.

There are no other victories, so I included this very inappropriate video from The Onion.

News

You can now buy a Kindle in every country on Earth except Canada. Suck it, Nova Scotia.

Google founder Sergey Brin wrote a New York Times Op-Ed on Google Books.

Upcoming Critiques

Thursday, October 15th. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Hard Luck by Shannon, Chapter five and six–go to http://shannonryan.net/user and enter username:noblepen and password:nblpn or ask me for a copy. It should be up by Saturday night, Sunday at the latest.

New chapter of A Convenient Truth, by Ian

Thursday, October 15th. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Looking for takers.

Keep Writing

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

October 8th, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

The electronic I Ching calculator was badly made. It had probably been manufactured in whichever of the South-East Asian countries was busy tooling up to do to South Korea what South Korea was busy doing to Japan.
-Douglas Adams

Laughter is the only thing that cuts trouble down to a size where you can talk to it.”
– Dan Jenkins

Victories

I am writing again. This might not end well.

Adam has been revising, when not tribute dancing in Stockholm.

Ciuin has managed to get some writing done in addition to all her writing work. Her first Assembly of Roma article is going to be on the Internet soon. She is writing a script for Usher’s Scary.

News

Usually, I just rip off everything in my “News” section from Nathan Bransford’s “This Week in Publishing.” The week, I made the effort to find everything myself, but after checking, Nathan had them anyway. Next week, I will return to the old method.

Remember the guy suing Amazon because his 1984 ebook was deleted. Amazon has settled out of court for $150,000, or $20,000 in 1984 dollars.

The success of Dan Brown’s ebook sales have been greatly exaggerated.

Upcoming Critiques

Thursday, October 8th. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

George

Ciuin – Petty Theft

Thursday, October 15th. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Ciuin

Adam???

Thursday, October 22nd. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique–Wow October already?

Hard Luck by Shannon, Chapter five and six–go to http://shannonryan.net/user and enter username:noblepen and password:nblpn or ask me for a copy.

Empty slot

Keep Writing

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

October 1st, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.
-Jalal ad-Din Rumi

In the future, everything will be easy, except IKEA
-Ivan Raszl

Victories

Julie Query and Shinkai Hakimi attended the meeting and asked to be added to the list. Julie’s email address threw me off a little, as it is also the name of my favorite javascript library.

Cuiun did rewrites of Petty Theft and finished another chapter of Quint’s Adventures. She was also happy not to be the only girl. Now, for some reason, I want a mirror-ball codpiece.

Nick sent me dispatches from Needles, CA and San Bernardino this week. He photographed 14 trains in San Bernardino, which to him is not a large number of trains to photograph, but to me seems a huge number of trains to photograph.

News

Best Buy is going to start selling ebook readers. My guess is that Best Buy enthusiasts will consider an ebook about as attractive as a fart in an elevator. Then again, even I go there occasionally. (Yes, that last sentence was purposefully ambiguous.)

Rachel Gardner has written a blog post on the importance of a proactive main character.

Upcoming Critiques

Thursday, October 1st. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique–Wow October already?

Hard Luck by Shannon, Chapter three and four–go to http://shannonryan.net/user and enter username:noblepen and password:nblpn or ask me for a copy. They should be up Saturday Night.

Adam – Legend of Ardloc 3

Thursday, October 8th. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

George

Ciuin

Thursday, October 15th. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

This space can be yours.

Keep Writing

Shannon

Noble Pen Meeting

September 24th, 2009
Happy Chef, 1906 Blairs Ferry Rd NE, Cedar Rapids

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
–Mark Twain
Generally speaking, I think it is fair to say that I am a friend to the creatures of the Earth when I am not busy eating them or wearing them.
— John Hodgman

Victories

Someone broke into George’s car. He hunted them down like dogs. High cigarette taxes are ultimately to blame.

Adam has two apartments, he will soon become a London cab driver whose wives don’t know about each other.

Adam also got to visit the morgue. Fortunately, he made it back out.

Wendy was paid promptly for her writing, because promises won’t buy mashed potatoes, no gravy.

News

Bad – a man who has not made a fortune off his books criticizes Dan Brown for his writing, Worse – the article is written by a known poet.

Sometime shortly after I sent out last weeks email, September 31st disappeared. I blame Faction Paradox, or more specifically their agent on earth, Lars Pearson.

Upcoming Critiques

Thursday, Sept 24th. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Ciuin–Quint 3, I think. I’m verry confused at this point.

Hard Luck by Shannon, Chapter One and Two (one more try)–go to http://shannonryan.net/user and enter username:noblepen and password:nblpn or ask me for a copy

Thursday, October 1st. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Adam – Legend of Ardloc 3

George

Thursday, October 8th. Happy Chef, 7pm Welcome and Victories, 7:30pm Critique

Clear

Keep Writing

Shannon