IT TAKES ONE A LONG TIME TO BECOME YOUNG

EXCELLENT REVIEWERS - PAUL REVERE HAS ROUSED THE DEAD

OH, the call to arms has been heard - FINALLY!
Rebels that we are, a sounding ringtone, a bash on the head, a kick in the pants, has brought the BEST from the lurkers, the wise, established senior members, who gave up on Reviewing because
1.) Their toil and detail in observation, critiquing, and suggestions were never given recognition, nor even acknowledgment..

2.) To see their detailed, fair rating of a piece and lengthiness of  review squeezed on the Public Review Page between two reviews containing a mere 300 words, saying absolutely NOTHING, did disgruntle these excellent former reviewers.......and with a collective sigh, turned them away...to other more professional sites, real Life Writing/Critiquing Groups within their local cities, and more likely focused their skils on their OWN work. Why waste beautiful language on a site where language skill is neither noticed nor applauded (that's why someone invented Spellchecker - lazy folks now don't need the trauma of searching for the correct spelling of a word, where a word should be used correctly in a simple sentence.....thy don't even have to search nor understand that some word can be nouns, pronouns, or dangle participals all over the place. They have the mighty SPELL CHECKER).

3.) Honestly, the BEST writers grew rather embaressed to send readers over to this site, were reluctant to admit their works were posted HERE of all writer' sites in the WW internet. Why present a poem here, when you can ask for feedback in places (i.e.moontowncafe.com    or winningwriters.com) where you may be egged off the stage, but at least know you paid your dues moving up in the rejection ladened clubs, coffee houses, and local open mike reading events).

BUT - me thinks, the clanking of Paul Revere's lantern has challenged the best and the Brightest away from their blogs, blogging, blogville, blogtown boring postings - and lit some fire under their egos........and gosh darn it.........they have shown up for the challenge. It ain't about numbers, people...it's about WHO is your REVIEWER? I can count on one hand, the people I submit my poems to review - because they don't give me one lousy inch of breathing room. I know it, they know it, they know I know what they're going to do - they are polite......but it's still a slight ding on my pride, my baby-sensitive ego to have them mention the obvious - which I DIDN'T SEE MYSELF. DUH! Talk about feeeling like an idiot................point being....CARE who your REVIEWER IS..........CHECK THEIR PRIOR REVIEWS, if you are sneding them poetry...check their portfolio...if they don't have one poem listed, chances are, they wouldn't know The Cat In The Hat from Ginsberg's radical rantings or e.e. cummings unique method of line wrapping  and oddly crazy spacing of lines. They wouldn't know THE POET. Just as I wouldn't know The Author of BOOKS, THE PLAYWRIGHT, THE COMPOSER, THE LYRICIST.

BUT - I do believe I am seeing names I have not seen in a very long time, and they have created Review Forums (aided by my kicking some of them in the tush........). And, for such a long time, writers who previously BEGGED for someone to read a draft of Chapter Five......are now being read, drafts re-vised, secondary plotlines dumped, characterizations bolstered, and genuine, bare boned opinions given.

HOORAY.......THANK YOU, BEST OF THE BEST for returning to the scene!

(Now if we could just get rid of all those annoying siggies, images, color blasters, tag-taggers and all that WritingML HTML excess..........gues we'll have to tackle that annoyance later in the year.)

Now, watch, I'll scurry over to the PRP and see 300 character count 'canned " reviews again trying to leave their mark - WHERE'S THE HOOK???)

At least you giggled after reading this, now didn't you.......?

HAPPY FRIDAY!  Practice smiling at a stranger, and forgive someone this weekend - just because.