By the time most of you are reading this, I’ll be either at Reagan National Airport or in the air on my way home to Houston. For the first time in 19 months, I won’t be available to obsess over the Tuesday grid submissions as they come in. And that’s a good thing.
By the time most of you are reading this, I’ll be separated from my husband Q’s bachelor fridge with its top shelf of hard cider, hard lemonade and varieties of sharp cheddar and on my back back to my kid-necessary top shelf of low-fat milk, sippy cups and apple slices in the deli drawer. And, uh, that’s a good thing. I guess. Dunno. Look at this thing:
this could be made better only by a liter of vodka in the freezer
$100 Amazon gift card challenge
The challenge kicked off last week, and there are three weeks to go. Meaning there is plenty of time for you to join in even if you’d never even heard of us until today.
On the challenge grid, you can earn from one to five points depending on your final grid row once voting closes, plus, if you win an editor’s pick, you get 10 extra points.
At the speakeasy, you can earn from one to five points depending on your final grid row, plus an extra 10 points for finishing in the top three.
click to embiggen
Challenge grid v. the speakeasy
The challenge grid is primarily for blog anecdotes, personal essays and creative nonfiction pieces. Quick primer: for yeah write purposes, the personal anecdote is the well-told blog story we love to read, the personal essay centers around the person writing the essay and should reveal a new perspective on the original topic before the essay concludes. Creative nonfiction, though it may contain a personal story, has more of a global focus with a subject matter requiring research.
The challenge grid is moderated by our submissions editor. Check all the helpful links further down in this post for details if you need them. Another micro-primer: 1,000-word limit, no fiction or poetry but it still must tell a story.
The speakeasy is reserved for fiction and poetry. It’s open submissions with Flood checking only if your post meets genre requirements.
Challenge grid and speakeasy badges
For today’s challenge grid and speakeasy, there are badges in the sidebar for you to grab by copying the code from the box below the graphic then pasting it into the HTML view of your post draft. It’s better if you not only paste into the HTML view, but hit publish while still in the HTML view. That should solve some of the difficulties some of you have been having getting the badge to show in your published post.
Current results for $100 Amazon gift card challenge
You can view the entire challenge results from yeah write #78 by clicking here for the public spreadsheet. The challenge is just our fun way for saying thanks to our regulars for sticking with us throughout all of the recent changes here at yeah write. It’s also a fun way to numb the shock of our newcomers. Once the card is yours, you can buy what you want, but we are recommending the 10 books suggested in this Brain Pickings article How to Read Like a Writer.
Don’t forget, you can always enter this contest for charity or a school classroom or a family in need just in time for the holidays. If you earn the card and plan to give it away to someone, I’ll add $50 to the amount and forward the card to your designated recipient on your behalf (anonymously if requested).
Helpful links
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- FAQ
- a blogger’s guide to writing a yeah write post
- what yeah write is, what yeah write isn’t
- vote-o-rama tracker
- weekly winners’ posts
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Optional supernatural prompt
Just as the speakeasy is joining us for the gift card challenge, we are joining the speakeasy in its Broken Magic promotion with an optional writing prompt for our blog anecdotes, personal essays and creative fiction. The photo prompt:
Yeah write #79 is open. Bring us your best stuff.
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So happy to be back on the grid! But my thumbnail is gone… wha ha happen? 🙁
HI Everyone!! Just wanted to let everyone know that i’m still in the Blogger Idol contest.
This week, the assignment was to write about our family as Super Heroes!!!
So now i’m using my Super Mind Channeling Powers to send you to VOTE NOW at
http://writersarethenewrockstars.blogspot.com/
(voting closes tomorrow night)
Thank you!!
Is it possible that the blogs are getting better and better?
And good pick on Edward Scissorhands for the image; I love that movie.
That’s me!
Heidi of Fancy Feet: I just want you to know that I can’t seem to get to your site…I think it’s my computer, not your link, but I’m bummed and will try again tomorrow.
is it just me, but does anyone else thing Change the Topic picture is a little too Reedster-like – ( and it looks like he lost his favorite bra as well)
or maybe it’s just me. 😉
Ahahaha, I love how they bookend poor Baby Outlaw Mama.
Flood: I have no qualms about telling you that the photo is a huge turn-on. That is one of my favorite films, and the Edward character brings out all sorts of weird protective feelings of sensuality.
Am I alone in this one? Isn’t Depp super-vulnerable-sexy in Edward Scissorhands?
Yes. I love that movie so much that my bridesmaids walked up the aisle at my wedding to the piece where Winona Ryder is dancing in the snow. And, to prove how much of a nerd I am, hubby and I walked down the aisle after our kiss to the end credits from Start Trek IV.
None of you will ever want to talk to me again…
Flood, I don’t know how you manage to look so gorgeous in every photo you post, no matter how edgy or artistic the theme.
Thanks, you guys!
Now, I will forever think of Kristin as the lady with the ambrosia salad and nails.
Harriet – I wasn’t able to comment on your post and couldn’t find an e-mail address on your blog, so I thought I’d post here and hope you see it, as I really enjoyed what you wrote.
Here’s the comment:
I have those thoughts and inklings all the time, but I always “stop myself before it gets morbid”. I’ve often wished I wasn’t so aware of the dark side of life, the tragedies poised to tear us apart just around the bend. But maybe some sense of the precariousness of our happy times is necessary to fully savour them, to not take them for granted.
Thank you for your kind words, Azara–and yes, I agree, I think I appreciate good things much more than I did and I definitely take nothing for granted anymore. Once you work through the darkness, you value the light very differently–and that’s a good thing in itself.
Also Erica? My husband is insanely jealous of Q’s refrigerator. The whole grass is always greener thing…
Let your husband know about Q’s massive loneliness when it’s an off-week for family visits. But, you know, a very clean living space and beer for breakfast on the weekends must count for something, right?
Flood – is that the make-up you were taking off before our hangout last week? If only I’d had you here to do my daughter’s Medusa costume last year…. ~ Cindy
No, that was this one:
I’ve
donebeen Medusa and I would like todobe her again, she’s terrible!LOVE. My 9yo (nicknamed Wednesday) would LOVE to be your photography subject.