Mark your calendars for our 4th and 5th weeks of the month: open submissions and upcoming holiday themes!

Starting this month, yeah write weekly writing challenge is mixing it up a little. Every fourth Sunday, Sunday being the first day of each weekly challenge, we will kick off a week of open submissions. Once you write your compelling personal essay or traditional blog anecdote then submit it to the challenge grid, your entry will appear immediately on the grid as opposed to being sent to our moderation queue for editor review.

When the challenge grid week is hosting an internationally or U.S.-recognized national holiday, we’ll have a little fun and hand out an optional theme for the grid. During that occasional fifth week of the month? Another fun, yet optional theme.

Today is both Fourth Tuesday and a U.S holiday week, so it’s open submissions! Please join us in 600 words or less. No love letters from our submissions crew unless your entry is so far outside our submission guidelines, we suspect you weren’t paying attention. That’s not you, right? Never. Bring us your best stuff.

So what is today’s optional theme or prompt? Let’s go with “blue waters.” You don’t have to use it! It’s just something fun to play with. Take a leap. Dive in. Blue waters. So cool and refreshing.

Is this your first time here? Welcome!

Did you follow the link from the badge on a friend’s blog? Welcome! Please check out our submission guidelines, then jump right in. We’d love to have you.

Did you land here out of curiosity because you saw a whole bunch of hits from yeah write in your wordpress.com stats? Welcome! That means somebody at yeah write stumbled over your post, thought it was a good fit for us, and submitted your post for consideration. We hope you don’t mind!

If you like, please grab the challenge badge from our sidebar, install it using the HTML view of your post, then visit the other entries on the grid. Did we mention there will be a vote for the best submissions on Thursday? That’s the fun part. Please stick around.

Who’s on Fourth? Yeah write interviews Karen of Fat Girl in Boxing Gloves

Please stop by this month’s interview with one of our most enthusiastic supporters of the traditional challenge, the gargleblaster, the speakeasy and the moonshine! It’s possible Karen has been on all four grids in one week because she is that prolific and awesome. Arden of Writing  While Wineing is always a delightful read as she hosts this interview series for yeah write.

Let’s open the invitational grid this week!

Why don’t we use our social media for good instead of evil this week and recruit our writing/blogging friends to the challenge grid? If we hit 30 entries, we will unlock the invitational grid, which is exactly what it sounds like: a separate grid, by invitation only, for editors to build by adding their favorites. It’s a separate grid voted on only by the editors who will then select a jury prize from the selections. If you know a few people who’ve been meaning to try us out, this would be a great week to convince them what good people we are. Thanks!

Kevin the kiwi and Comment Bob

Everyone knows Kevin by now! He’s that stylish kiwi with the scarf and hat, rooting around for an exceptional post on the grid. When we have fewer than 30 posts entries in the challenge, a randomly selected editor will choose her favorite post and award that post the week’s kiwi badge. This week, though, we want Kevin to take a little break while we award the jury prize instead!

Comment Bob flies through your open window at night and leaves pom-poms under your pillow when you are the reader leaving the most thoughtful comments on each entry on the challenge grid. Just kidding. Penguins can’t fly. The part about the pom-poms, though, completely true, so please make it a point to participate in our community as a writer, reader, voter and commenter. We call it a challenge for a reason, and making the rounds to all the other blogs is a very large part of it.

More entries means more votes

The crowd favorite is determined by a moderated popular vote. That means it’s never a clicking contest. We expect our readers to vote for the best on the challenge grid based on technical and artistic merit. here’s the scale:

• 01-10 submissions: one vote
• 11-20 submissions: two votes
• 21-30 submissions: three votes
• 31-40 submissions: four votes
• 41-50 submissions: five votes

The more submissions, the more votes. Write a blurb beside your yeah write challenge button inviting your friends to join us. Send a personal email. Talk us up in your writing circles. Stumble over a blog post you think would be perfect for the challenge grid? Email us the link, and if it’s a good fit, we’ll add it ourselves.

Odds, ends, reminders

• The badge you will need to add to your planned submission is over in the sidebar
• This immediate past Sunday is the earliest your submission can be dated
• Your post can be no longer than 600 words: it’s 500 words plus 100 words grace
• Personal essays or traditional blog anecdotes only
• There are no mandatory weekly prompts; the topic is yours. Be compelling
• The grid is open from Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. to Wednesday at 11:59 p.m.
• There is voting. Voting will take place Thursday from midnight to 10:00 p.m. US eastern
• The challenge grid is limited to 50 bloggers
• The winners’ post will be published by noon on Friday
• No commercial, sponsored or self-promotional posts are allowed on the yeah write grid, including those containing links to other blog events and Internet contests

Voting is open at the gargleblaster!

If you have a chance, stop by, read all the 42-word entries, then vote on the best three of the gargleblaster grid. It’s yeah write’s newest challenge, and we’re quite proud of it.

Looking for the fiction slam and poetry jam?

If you’re a poet or a fiction writer, there is a challenge grid just for you over at the speakeasy. Please head on over and check it out. If you are feeling super creative and imaginiative, you can participate on both grids, however please be sure you’ll have the time to read all of the entries and vote responsibly.

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Yeah write #163 traditional challenge grid is open…