Welcome, virgins!

Let’s give a warm welcome to this week’s three yeah write newbies! Thanks for navigating the grid and bringing your best stuff to the challenge. In fact, a round of applause to everyone who joined this week to post, comment, or lurk and read. This week we each had three votes to cast for our favorites, so let’s get to the winners.

Crowd favorite

“McSticky Situation” by Priscilla at Priscilla Queen of the Dessert

In this week’s crowd favorite, “McSticky Situation,” the author maintains an easy conversational style, as though she were simply moving through her day and casually telling us about it. It’s difficult to capture in writing such a natural voice, but she does it all while keeping us laughing at every turn. Tied together by her kindergartner’s newfound delight with the post-it note, it’s a hilarious ride. Each line is stuffed with inventive turns of phrase. Eating food from McDonald’s? Priscilla calls that “shov[ing] engineered eats into my irritable innards.” Cranky? She shows rather than tells us how she feels – “I even found myself getting angry at a butterfly.” But the post is much more than a bunch of one-liners. It’s a real story, with a beginning, a middle, and a punchline at the end that perfectly ties back to her sticky note set-up.  Congratulations, Priscilla! Your crowd favorite badge awaits you.

Congratulations also to the rest of our top row: Cynthia at that cynking feeling for “liquid courage” and Michelle L at Michelle Longo for “Air Condtioner.”  Go nab your top row badges from the sidebar.

The kiwi of the week is…

The editors award Kevin the Kiwi  to a post that stood out from the crowd, just like Kevin does in his top hat and ostentatious scarf. This week the editors present the kiwi to Genna at writeamuck for her post “Baptized in Grief.” It’s a story about meeting her ambivalence with religion head-on at a Memorial Day concert held in a church. She fluidly weaves in the lyrics to “Amazing Grace” as she leads to her own moment of catharsis – not for the veterans at the center of the event, but for the loss of her own mother.

Congratulations, Genna! Your kiwi badge can be found in the sidebar.

Comment Bob is waving those pom-poms

Comment Bob loves writers who go above and beyond to support our community each week. This week Bob was so excited about the awesome participation in the challenge that he is bestowing himself upon two bloggers: Linda Roy of Elleroy Was Here and Meg at Pigspittle, Ohio. They both thoughtfully commented on almost every post on the grid and otherwise were awesome yeah writers. Congratulations Linda and Meg! Thanks for encouraging your fellow bloggers this week. You’ve earned your own Comment Bob badge!

Weekend moonshine grid opens today at 6 p.m. eastern time

It’s the weekend, and Natalie D will shortly be setting up the moonshine grid and bathtub gin just for you. She’s in a disco mood, so prepare for Donna Summer and the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack blaring on nonstop rotation. She could use some help screwing the disco ball into the ceiling, if you’re tallish. The moonshine grid is the flip side of our weekly challenges: a no-stress link-up where we accept anything except commercial or sponsored posts.  Closing time is midnight on Monday.

Win-win

The thumbnails are now sorted in the grid from most votes to the least. In the case of a tie, the thumbnails are additionally sorted by page views. Do not be discouraged if your blog has landed near the bottom of the grid; especially if it was a tight race. The fun lies in getting better exposure for your blog and, in the spirit of competition, an incentive to improve your writing and blogging skills. It’s a win-win for everybody involved. Thanks again, everybody, for submitting, for reading, and for accepting the weekly writing challenge. And for making yeah write the most welcoming spot on the Interwebs for writers who blog and bloggers who write.

Before you go

Take a moment to congratulate this week’s winners in the comments, and give a shout-out to your favorites from the grid! Come on back next week with more of your stories.

Yeah write #164 opens with the kickoff post on Sunday, the gargleblaster on Monday, and the challenge grid and speakeasy fiction jam on Tuesday. Be sure you’ve subscribed to our email list to get notice when prompts are posted, grids open, and voting begins. It’s easy to do! Just sign up right here. And then come back and bring your best writing to the best writing community around! See you next week.

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