We’re entering the final week of the yeah write summer writer’s series, and we’re treating it as a practice week before the regular challenge grid returns for yeah write #71.

This week, the writers who have been participating in the summer writer’s series will take over the grid as guest editors and judges. Our contributing editors, who normally judge the challenge grid, are welcome to add their submissions to the challenge grid. It’s like Freaky Friday without Jamie Lee Curtis and the curse of the Chinese grandma.

Thanks to each and every writer who blogs and blogger who writes who participated in our seven-week series. If this is your first time here, welcome! You’ll love the spirit of the yeah write community and we invite you to hang out with us on Twitter and on Facebook.

Badges!

The badges, required for your grid submission, are hidden on this page in a widget at the top right. Click on the plus sign above the social media icons and the hidden widget containing the badge codes will drop. Grab the code of your favorite badge and paste it into the HTML view of the post you’re submitting to either the summer series grid or the hangout grid.

[image width=”225″ height=”225″ align=”right” lightbox=”true” caption=”You can grab this one. Click to embiggen. Then right-click and select save this image.” title=””]https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/yw_wwb_bww.png [/image]

If you want to use a hangout badge as your summer series grid backlink:

change 70-open-hangout to 70-open-summer inside the code

If you want to use a summer series badge as your hangout grid backlink:

change 70-open-summer to 70-open-hangout inside the code

Remember, just as grid was moderated this summer, when the challenge grid returns as yeah write #71, the moderating will continue. We have a wonderfully interesting mix of beginning and long-time bloggers on the grid. It’s important to us to maintain that mix within a few guidelines and parameters. We’ll release your submitted post from the moderation queue if you:

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• keep your word count to 500 or fewer
• offer your readers a central conflict, a “so what”
• tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. It should be more than a journal entry
• omit any reference at all to the optional prompts, either as an introduction to your post or as a footnote

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If your post is just outside the guidelines and needs a little help, Flood can help you:

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• find your “so what”
• decide where to cut if you’ve gone over the word limit
• focus and tighten your story

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Flood will return any submission: 

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• overrun by poor writing
• that cannot be summarized in a sentence or two
• overwhelmed by italics, misused apostrophes and the strike-through text feature
• containing a preamble to what the writer is going to write instead of just writing about it

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If you’ve been through most of the summer series, you’re familiar with Flood as submissions gatekeeper. This is mainly for those who took the summer off and may not be aware of the changes around here and, of course, for any yeah write virgins coming through.

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the prompts are now optional; if you need one, grab one

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• If the prompt takes you from thunderstorms to watching TV at your grandma’s house to how much you love Pat Sajak to the oldest person you’ve ever kissed, we want that story the furthest away in your imagination from the original prompt. Let your imagination loose
• Keep your writing style! Do you tell stories with humor? Prose? Verse? Photos? Illustrations? Keep doing that. 

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[divider_header_h3] This week’s prompts [courtesy of Tom Slatin] [/divider_header_h3]

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• Describe the longest amount of time you have ever been away from home.
• Write about something you know now that you wish you knew earlier in life.
• What music medium did you grow up with; vinyl records, CDs, or digital?

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Yeah write #70 opens Tuesday…