[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]Focus.

You know how sometimes you’re taking a picture with your phone, but the little focus box absolutely refuses to stay on the thing you’re actually trying to take a picture of? Yeah, uh, me neither. Never happens to me. Nope. But sometimes I feel like that when I’m writing. I’ll get through a whole description of something that was really important to me, and I’ll look back and not see one word about what made it important.

When that happens, I have to back up and regroup. See what details are in the picture that don’t need to be there, and what I should have included in the first place. Refocus. Even if it means discarding whole chunks of my original post.

Boy, does that hurt. I have a little folder that is the graveyard where those posts go to die because I’m not ready to let go and delete them yet. Some days I wander through there and pore over their literary corpses, hoping to find a granule of something as good as I thought they were when I wrote them. It almost never happens.

The thing those posts are missing is that elusive “so what” that takes them from just words on the page to a post on the grid. If you’re looking at a post and you’re not quite sure about it, ask yourself… so what? Why is it important to me to communicate this to someone else, and what do I want them to take away from it? That “so what” can be anything from a belly laugh to a new way of looking at the relationship between parents and children, but it needs to be there.

As you read back through the winning posts this week, look for that “so what” in them. You do read back through the winners each week and think about the writing style and techniques, right? Better reading makes for better writing. If you’re not quite sure what you’re looking for, stop by the coffeehouse for Nate’s shots of espresso, where he discusses techniques in a post from the prior week and gives you ideas for applying them in your own work.

Since you need to know who the winners are to read those posts, I’m going to give you the results on all three of our grids – nonfiction, fiction|poetry, and microfiction – right here and now!

But it’s not all about the popular vote, folks. We also have our editorial staff picks to hand out. Every week our editors comb through your submissions looking for their favorites. Picks are based on writing quality, how successful the author is in conveying information, and just plain style. If you got a staff pick this week, grab your badge from the sidebar and wear it with pride!

Once you’re done reading through the staff picks (and congratulating the winners in the comments), keep scrolling down to check out who won the popular vote on all three grids.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Yeah write #212 weekly writing challenge staff picks: nonfiction

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that it was the same only better by red’s wrap

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Yeah write #212 weekly writing challenge staff picks: fiction|poetry

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may came by seraphina

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Yeah write #212 weekly writing challenge staff picks: microstories

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where this is going by angie

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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]Congratulations to this week’s winners! If you earned the highest number of votes in either challenge, you are this week’s crowd favorite. If you came in first, second or third, you get “top three” honors. Grab your badge from our sidebar!

Looking for your badge? The fiction|poetry, nonfiction and microstories challenges all have the same winner, staff pick, and top three badges. It doesn’t clutter up our sidebar, and they’ll still look pretty on yours!

Everybody: before you go, please take some time to leave your favorites a little love in the comments.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

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

A good homemade liqueur takes 2 cups of vodka, 1 cup of fruits or flowers, and about 1/2 cup of simple syrup. A good post takes an idea, words, and the will to communicate. Why not take both and mix them up this weekend on Natalie’s moonshine grid? Just don’t add commercial posts to the mix; they’re bitter.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]

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