Grind Writers 2020 schedule at Sept 4, 2020

Grind Writers 2020

Because of the Covid19 pandemic, the in-person meetings of The Grind Writers Group are on hold until further notice. For more information, email: grindwriters at gmail dot com or find our group on Facebook. 

Stay safe, be well!

*Every*thing is a writing prompt

Absolutely anything can work as a writing prompt.

Grind Writer, Malcolm van Delst (DoThe Wrong Thing) proved this at our last meeting. 

In a box of writing prompts she found an old bottle of Beaver® brand sweet hot mustard full of sand. It was a jury-rigged thing I had made to weigh down the bottle which in turn held a sign at the writing table, and it got left in the prompts box.

Intrigued by this anomalous 3D object, she chose it as a writing prompt. And look what she created out of that! It goes to show that when you allow yourself to just write, when you let your mind free-wheel and say its piece through your pen, you always come up with creative stuff.

If you want to hear this piece below in her voice, watch this video of Malcolm reading at her Do The Wrong Thing book launch first.
____________________

Cat Litter in a Beaver Brand Sweet Hot Mustard/Moutard Sucree Forte Bottle, Gold Medal Winner, 360 ml

A free-wheeling free-write by Malcolm van Delst

All right, it’s poem time! Poem, pome, mome. Mome-me. I can bring my mother into anything.

All right, it’s poem time! Let’s get rid of her—the Mother, I mean—or, I don’t mean—literally, I mean—Jesus Christ, can you not bring her into something just this once?

She didn’t like mustard or cats. She holds more than 360 ml of anything. She IS red and yellow—oh, damn, look—I said I wasn’t going to bring her into this and here she is: The Mother. All Hail the Red and Yellow Mother!

Gold. Medal. Winner. Every mother is a Gold Medal Winner, it’s baked into the role. To every child, their mother is the absolute best, the center, the beginning the life force the giver the taker the One and Only.

Yeah, it’s happening: Mom took this over. Whatever, Ma, you can have me. You got me. You ol’ goat.

                                                     
There. I insulted her and now, a short reprieve, reader, which I’ve indicated with a double space.

Gold. Medal. Winner. Ma. Mom. Monster. That movie starring Charlize Theron. There’s a mother if ever there was one! “Mother.” In the sense of “heavy,” “large,” “deserving of respect,” even if not love or admiration. Respect for the audacity and evil. What kind of mother makes a mother like Elaine W—I’ll have to look up her name afterwards, the real woman Charlize’s character is based on in the movie, Monster?

There are ways to win medals—scratch that—there are ways to win fame that aren’t based on being liked. Take this cat litter in the mustard bottle. Weird, singular—what if the person who made this bottle left the remaining mustard in before pouring in the litter? That would add to the je ne sais quoi.

What if a monster mother was thrown into this bottle, where she couldn’t mother monster, monster mother? Bottled. Jailed—that would be it: what we do to our criminals.

I like to think of a tiny monster mother bottled in the Beaver Brand Sweet Hot Mustard bottle with the “Gold Medal Winner” sash on the bottom. I bet the monster mother would like that, too. The sash, I mean, she wouldn’t like being bottled, though really, that she is: bottled up—all that hate, anger and anguish with nowhere to go, exploding. Like yellow mustard in a bottle on a hot window ledge in the sun.
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©2019 Malcolm van Delst

Updated meetings schedule

Please email grindwriters at gmail.com 
before you attend for the first time.

Grind Writers Dates 2019
·  Sun Apr 28 Elizabeth McLean: "She's Terrible, and I Love Her:  'Unlikable' Female Characters."	·Sun July 21
	·Sun Aug 11
	·Sun Aug 25
·  Sun May 5  date changed to:	·Sun Sept 08
·  Sat May 11 We’re at WriteOn Vancouver Fest,  VPL downtown 11-4	·Sun Sept 22
	·Sun Oct 06
·  Sun May 26	·Sun Oct 20
·  Sun June 09 Susan L Greig, Journal Lady	·Sun Nov 03  DST ends
·  Sun June 23 Karen Schauber - "The Marvels of Flash Fiction"	·Sun Nov 17
·  Sun July 7 Elizabeth McLean: “Interiority in Fiction - How to balance internal narrative with action”	·Sun Dec 01
	·Sun Dec 15, 2019

2018 Grind Writers meeting schedule

Before you attend, please email:  grindwriters [at] gmail [dot] com
We sometimes meet elsewhere; meetings may be cancelled.

Please come and join our Facebook group - search "The Grind Writers Group" (Make sure you put that "the" in the search words because there are two groups, one defunct.)

2018 Grind Writers Group schedule (skips holiday weekends)
Sat Jan 20	Sun July 8
Sat Feb 10	Sun July 22
Sun Feb 25	Sun Aug 12
Sun Mar 11	Sun Aug 26
Sun Mar 25	Sun Sept 9
Sun Apr 8	Sun Sept 23
Sun Apr 22	Sun Oct 14
Sun May 6	Sun Oct 28
Sun May 27	Sun Nov 18
Sun June 10	Sun Dec 9
Sun June 24

2017 SCHEDULE Grind Writers

Grind Writers Schedule 2017

*Note: Important - please email grindwriters@gmail.com before attending a meeting.

GRIND  WRITERS MEETING DATES 2017
Sun	Jan 22		Sat	July 8
Sat	Feb 4		Sun	July 23
Sun	Feb 19		Sat	Aug 5
Sat	Mar 4		Sun	Aug 20
Sun	Mar 19		Sat	Sept 9
Sat	Apr 1		Sun	Sept 24
Sun	Apr 23		Sat	Oct 7
Sat	May 6		Sun	Oct 22
Sun	May 28		Sat	Nov 4
Sat	June 10		Sun	Nov 19
Sun	June 25		Sat	Dec 2
			Sun	Dec 17

2017 Grind Writers Meeting Schedule

Please email before you attend a meeting. Sometimes we change the venue if we have a field event, and there are some requirements before you come to a meeting. Thanks.

Email:  grindwriters@gmail.com

GRIND  WRITERS MEETING DATES 2017
Sat	Jan 7		Sat	July 8
Sun	Jan 22		Sun	July 23
Sat	Feb 4		Sat	Aug 5
Sun	Feb 19		Sun	Aug 20
Sat	Mar 4		Sat	Sept 9
Sun	Mar 19		Sun	Sept 24
Sat	Apr 1		Sat	Oct 7
Sun	Apr 23		Sun	Oct 22
Sat	May 6		Sat	Nov 4
Sun	May 28		Sun	Nov 19
Sat	June 10		Sat	Dec 2
Sun	June 25		Sun	Dec 17