Wordgrove Post & Review

Quoted in the Grove:

There is no iron that can enter the human heart with such stupefying effect, as a period placed at just the right moment.
~Isaak Babel

A page of good prose remains invincible.
~John Cheever

Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.
~Elie Wiesel

~~

Posted from the Grove:

Perfect weather, the smell of newly mown lawns, lilacs, barbecues, music from sidewalk buskers blends to sounds of picnic laughter to meadowlarks in fields of a sunset walk. There’s sizzle in the air and it’s only spring. The lake’s too cold to swim, it’s not even summer yet and already the drift begins from indoors to anything happening out

It has been traditional for this editor to put the newsletter (now the Wordgrove Post & Review) on hiatus during summer’s traditional dispersal. This allows him to reclaim his weekends, and provides time to work on personal projects. Also to assemble new sets of quotes and piss away some beer. Thursday Word Games will continue, as desired of course, and guest editors who wish to practice their writing chops and have some fun are welcome to fill in as the spirit moves

As in the past, each issue belongs solely to the style of that week’s guest editor. Altho humor (noxy, GaryBob), poetess of nature, love and beauty (Greenie, for example), and many other affirmative posts  are represented,* be advised that caustic, blistering wit, well-applied, is also welcome. The Post & Review asks only that guest editors try for their best, include a few quotes and have some fun. Contact BarTalk if interested

~

Prewritten for Thurs (05/02) 5 pm PT/8 ET is: morass, corduroy

~~

@Writers Platform
Prewritten: Write a scene or story based on a newspaper, tabloid or magazine article

~BarTalk: Bullet Proof Heart

~

Impromptu: macaroon, full moon

~Stejovis: Visions of Sugar
The divine rush of that first bite into a macaroon, warm and oven-fresh, or another full moon; next, to choose between them: a youth in pursuit of romance, or someone of age pursuing scrumptious; results may vary within age groups

~OdileC: Odile’s Impromptu
Review withheld on request, but fun reading

~BarTalk: not a haiku

~

*to see Wordgrove’s guest editors in action:
http://wordgrove.com/noxy.html
http://wordgrove.com/GaryBob1.html
http://wordgrove.com/editors.html
http://wordgrove.com/editors09.html

Links to newsletters in club forums are no longer active, but quotes for each guest editor are given

~ . ~

Read Full Post »

Quoted in the Grove:

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.
~George Eliot

Gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and only lowborn metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica.   ~Mark Twain

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.   ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

~~

Posted from the Grove:

Apparently beatings aren’t just about bruises and broken bones, scars, or even death. Sometimes they open doors to pain that never close, leave open sores that never heal

Usually it’s manageable, keeping the symptoms corralled, reined in, under control, then something wild awakens, kicks the gate open. Emotions bolt, escape, become a stampede in danger of the edge, the cliff, a precipitous fall. The instinct for survival, tenuous at best, disappears in the chaos, threatens extinction … then experience steps up and speaks. I remember this from before, it says. I survived then, and I was happy again. This too shall pass. Memories consolidate, become experience and the beginning of wisdom

~

Prewritten for Thurs (04/18) 5 pm PT/8 ET is: tangent, inexorable

~~

@Writers Platform
Glass Table:

~Jessalee: Find your inner, outer Therian
Links to 5 sites with random word generators; Impromptu problem solved courtesy of Jessalee; a good copy to have for the serious writer in There

~Piffin: The Ice Cream Girl
About people who know you that don’t, and the one who does just once; the language of tongues; the spreading delta, a flooding dyke and deluge in jeans

~madamoisellefifi: I am alive
Perhaps the lyrics to one of her songs: a paean to life’s dips and devastations, sublime sweetness has its anthem, a hymn of praise for being alive

~

Prewritten: Scan article from a tabloid, newspaper or magazine and write a scene or story about it

~BarTalk: Bullet Proof Heart

~

Impromptu: haiku on clouds

~Piffin:
I lie on the grass
Building castles in the clouds
Waiting to move in

Stejovis:
floating in a fog;
caught in the grip of cloud
no one sees clearly

~

Writers in Residence: no new reviews

~ . ~

Read Full Post »

Quoted in the Grove:

You can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.
~Christopher Morley

If words are to enter men’s minds and bear fruit, they must be the right words shaped cunningly to pass men’s defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds.
~JB Phillips

Forget the epic, the masterwork, leave slow growth to the book reviewers, you only have time to explode.
~Nathaniel West

~~

Posted from the Grove:

An interesting discussion at last Thurs’ Word Game unfolded in writerly style, complete with hurt feelings and miffed sensibilities. The conversation played out as it did because that’s what writers do. We bicker. We are notorious for it. We work with words and play with ideas, and ideas clash. Thesis >*< antithesis > synthesis :: Propose >*< clash > emend. Rinse and repeat. Ideas should contend with each other, or someone’s not being unique to the conversation. As far as this editor was concerned: mission accomplished

Even if no light had been generated (there was, in fact), the result itself was laudable. An independent writing project was launched, and a new, short-notice writer’s happening will be hosted by Jessa. Occasionally. If not necessarily related, dear friends from There’s first iteration returned to enter the conversation during her meeting

It was jaw-dropping astonishment for this editor when Daisy, then Terra popped in to visit. Yowza! And ‘flood of memories’ acquired sudden new meaning. If someone whose initials are Val were to get her new computer and stopped in and chanced to see them … well, we could sell tickets to that

~

Prewritten for Thurs (04/18) 5 pm Pacific/8 Eastern is: Read a news site, a newspaper or a supermarket tabloid. Scan the articles until you find something that interests you and use it as the basis for a scene or story

~~

@Writers Platform

Glass Table:

~Piffin: Up In Back, Beneath A Tree (p.r. 04.07)

Prewritten: Prepare a list, A to Z, with words for each letter to be mixed and matched as prompts for Thurs Word Games

Sample word/s from each author’s list:

~whitefeather: Prewritten for Thurs (04/11)
wishbone ~ a composite word, skeletal on which to flesh out a story

~Piffin: A sample selection, the letter R
radiant, rancid, redolent, repugnant, repulsive, resonant, resplendent, rhapsodic ~

~BarTalk
reliquary ~ listed word with richest mouth feel

~

Impromptu: Write the map to where you live. Use the words: chrysalis, bastion

~Piffin: .Bastion.
Directions for location less important than the soul of a place; myriad images coalesce into identity, the only coordinates are here and now

~BarTalk: The Writer’s Residence

~~

Writers in Residence: No rounds this week

~ . ~

Read Full Post »