Welcome to all our challenge grid virgins!
It’s been a very long time since we’ve counted up our challenge grid newbies. Maybe because it’s been a long time since we’ve had so many. Welcome to all seven virgins! We hope you had a fun time hanging out with us. Come back next week, and bring your friends. We love company.
Editor picks and the invitational grid
When the challenge grid has 30 or more entries, the yeah write editors open the invitational grid and choose our favorite posts based on technical and artistic merit. Yeah write editors are ineligible for the invitational because this is your place to shine, not ours. Congratulations this week to Bill of The Authentic Life, Obed of Obed Medina, Sarah of New Page New Chapter, Christie of The Outlaw Mama, Linda of Elleroy Was Here, and Monica of Aprons & Blazers. Grab an editor’s pick badge from the sidebar for your winning posts!
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From the editors’ picks, the yeah write editors then select one for this week’s jury prize. This week’s prize, like it has in the past couple of weeks, goes to a yeah write virgin.
Jury prize winner
“The Cigarette Break” by Sarah at New Page, New Chapter
It’s a very simple story, the kind we love to read here at yeah write. “The Cigarette Break” opens right on top of the action and introduces Shelly, the co-worker most of us have known at different stages of our lives. Sarah sets up an honest scene toward the climax: one acknowledging her privilege and the benefit of the doubt that follows her everywhere and the other setting up Shelly as the first suspect in every questionable situation. Empathetic characters, both Sarah and Shelly, the reader accepts Sarah’s eventual success as a given, yet roots for Shelly to catch her next break. The narrator reveals no superfluous detail, the reader just gets it.
Well done, Sarah. Thanks for joining us this week and congratulations on the jury prize win. There’s a winner’s badge for you in the sidebar.
Hidden Easter eggs in some of the challenge grid stories
Did you find it? Deanna of My Muted Voice mentioned it in comments of Tuesday’s post and Linda of Elleroy Was Here said something about it in Cindy’s post. There were eight writers on the challenge grid who managed to incorporate the phrase “superfluous pepper spray” into their narratives as an additional challenge on top of keeping the posts fewer than 600 words and reading all the posts in time for voting day. We’ve made a little Easter egg prize badge for Deanna and Linda to thank them for reading all the way through without skimming. Not that anyone skims around here. No one skims.
Crowd favorites
“Life: Some Assembly Required” by Bill Dameron of The Authentic Life and “Radioactive” by Cindy Reed of The Reedster Speaks
It’s a tie! Which sometimes happens, and even though number of page views is the technical tie breaker, sometimes, we make an executive decision to award the crowd favorite to each top vote-getter. Bill wins for his exasperated, but loving husband post, and Cindy wins for her radioactive boob. Congrats to you both! Please pick up your badges from the sidebar for displaying proudly on your blogs.
Congrats also to Bill and Cindy’s top row five: Erica M of free fringes, Michelle Longo of Michelle Longo, and Linda Roy of Elleroy Was Here. Badges for you, too.
Weekend moonshine grid opens today at 6 p.m. eastern time!
It’s the weekend, and yeah write editor Natalie D is setting up her moonshine grid and bathtub gin just for you. Show us the other side of your blog – those posts that might not meet our submission guidelines for the weekly challenge grid but are awesome nonetheless. Link up or just visit, read, and comment. We’re serving drinks, hard and soft. Catch up with Natalie starting at 6 p.m. eastern time today. 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, 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, a few encouraging comments?
Please take the time to congratulate the winners and to share what you liked about the posts that may have not made the top row five. We are all learning as we go, and it’s nice to hear what our readers love about our latest stories.
Yeah write #145 opens Tuesday…
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Congratulations Bill, Cindy, Erica and Michelle! I’m proud to be among you! The Easter egg thing was pret-ty sneaky. 🙂 I thought everybody was just super pro-active in the area of self defense…or something! Thank you for the badge. My blog shall wear it proudly.
Congratulations top five and editor’s picks! It was a pleasure reading everybody’s entries this week. 🙂
Thank you! I really enjoy the community here at Yeahwrite, and was impressed by so many of the posts! All of the top 5 were amazing, but I wish it could have been the top 6–I would have loved to see “What’s Not on My Bucket List” up there!
I hope I don’t come across as a suck up, but I thought all of the Yeah Write editors BROUGHT IT this week. Not only did Michelle’s intro on Tuesday say “bring your best,” the editors who linked up showed us how it is done.
Congratulations Sarah! I didn’t have to re-read your piece to know it deserved one of my votes, but I re-read it anyway to enjoy the details and your craft.
Good job to the rest of the top row five!
Thanks, Cyn! Some of us editors have been off the grid for a small break, so it was nice to come back well-rested and focused on our narratives. I am very glad you noticed. Thanks for everything you do!
Congratulations to all of the winners and the rest of the top row 5.
It was wonderful to see so many new people on the grid. Reading the posts was a pleasure this week.
Congrats everyone! I loved The Cigarette Break and am already imagining myself reading a best selling memoir by Sarah. I also need to shout out my personal faves …my sister editors Erica and Michelle, always always Bill, and Linda for the aching emotion in your post. I WISH I HAD A CAN OF SUPERFLUOUS PEPPER SPRRAY FOR EACH OF YOU.
You get a can of pepper spray! And YOU get a can of pepper spray!
Aw, sister editor. I like that. Congrats sis 😉
I like sister editor, too. That made me happy.