Here we go again!
There is so much enthusiasm around this place. It astounds me. All across the grids, you are not just submitting work, but you’re reading, commenting and building community. Honestly? It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.
However, a word of caution: don’t let your enthusiasm get in the way of good writing. This week, we saw a number of entries that felt rushed. Spelling and punctuation mistakes, shifts in verb tenses, that sort of thing. In several cases, these errors distracted from otherwise well-conceived posts. Here at yeah write, we want you to bring your very best. Take a few extra minutes to read through your piece and check it for grammatical errors. Read it aloud—you’d be amazed how much you’ll notice with your ears versus your eyes.
In that vein, I’m dropping a little hint here. From July 14 – August 22, yeah write will be hosting a one-of-a-kind summer series geared specifically towards improving your writing. For six weeks, you can submit pieces (up to 1200 words) for constructive criticism. This includes peer-to-peer evaluation, small group workshops, and individual editor reviews. At the same time, the individual grids will take a vacation and everyone will be invited to submit to a universal summer grid. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays, microfiction—it’s all good on the summer grid.
More details will come out next week, so stay tuned!
Challenge winners round-up
In case you missed them, here’s a summary of all the #164 winners. Take a few minutes to check out the best of all the grids right here.
Challenge grid
- Crowd favorite: Natalie at The Cat Lady Sings for Not Waving but Drowning
- Top row: Therese at You’re Doing it Wrong for Drug Seeking Behavior and Rowan G at CrossKnit for We do it for the….
- Kevin the Kiwi: Nate at The Relative Cartographer for Dreams as Big as Canada
- Comment Bob: Janelle from Breaking Moulds, Claire from Pills and Spills, and Tina from Not Just Another Mother Blogger
Speakeasy
- Crowd favorites: #1 Meg for Balancing on a Shock Wave; #2 Christi of EditMoi for Ascent; #3 Courtney from iasoupmama for Rattled; #4 Bethany from bethanyallenblogger for Little Bird
- Editors’ pick: Karen from Fat Girl Boxing for A Cautionary Tale
Gargleblaster
- Crowd favorite: Tina at Not Just Another Mother Blogger for Confession
- Editors’ pick: Thom at tnkerr for Henry Perkins
- Top row seven: Tina, plus Susan from The Wizard’s Word for Uncaged Melody; Thom; Kymm at Better Lies for Egress; Nate at The Relative Cartographer for Mr. Lewis’s Love Affair; Rowan G at textwall for Attica; and Michelle L for Brain Cage.
Congratulations to all! Don’t forget: the moonshine grid is still open. Have something to add? Old posts and new are welcome. Go add yours, and while you’re there, visit your fellow yeah writers.
The ultimate question
The last couple of week’s we’ve given you some pretty open ended questions, and you did a great job exploring all the possibilities that those bring. This week, we’re narrowing the focus a bit. This question comes from Alice Munro’s short story Postcard, suggested by our own Erica M:
Did Grace say that, too?
The question is pretty specific, but we’re confident you can run with it. Take a little time to think on it, if you need to. We’d rather have you hitchhike with a great response than post the first thing that comes to your head. Remember to think out of the box, and that you don’t need to include the question in your response. Give us your answer in 42 words. Here are a couple of guidelines:
- Do not mention anywhere in your post, either as intro or footnote, that you are writing to a prompt.
- We want the story the furthest away in your imagination from the original prompt. Let your imagination loose.
- Keep your writing style! Do you tell stories with humor? Prose? Verse? Photos? Illustrations? Keep doing that.
- Proofread. Just because it’s short doesn’t mean you can cut corners.
Make sure your answer stands alone. What do we mean? Write down the question. Write down your response. Now cover the question with your hand and read your answer out loud. Does it still make sense when you don’t know the question? That’s what we’re looking for.
The grid opens at midnight on Monday (that’s one minute after 11:59 PM on Sunday) and closes at midnight on Tuesday (that’s one minute after 11:59 PM on Monday). Yes, we give you only 24 hours to post, so you’d better get writing now! Come back to vote on Tuesday, and we’ll announce winners on Wednesday. Don’t forget to badge your post – the current gargleblaster badge is below.
Challenge schedule
There’s a lot going on around here lately. To make it simple, we’ll lay out the multi-grid schedule here:
- Sunday midnight: the gargleblaster prompt is announced in the kickoff post, and the speakeasy prompt is announced over at the speakeasy.
- Monday midnight: the gargleblaster grid opens for submissions.
- Tuesday midnight: the gargleblaster grid closes, and voting begins. The challenge grid and the speakeasy grid open for submissions. 10:00 PM: gargleblaster voting closes.
- Wednesday by noon: the gargleblaster winners are announced.
- Thursday midnight: the challenge grid and speakeasy grids close, and voting begins.10:00 PM:voting for both grids closes.
- Friday by noon: the challenge grid and speakeasy winners are announced, and the moonshine gridopens.
- Saturday and Sunday: moonshine grid is still open, writing, editing and rewriting happening for upcoming week!
Get your badges!
Below you’ll find the badges for yeah write challenge #164 and this week’s gargleblaster. Copy the code under the appropriate badge and paste it into the html or text view of your blog editor. Having trouble? Contact christine@yeahwrite.me for tech support.
<a href="https://yeahwrite.me/writing-challenge-165/"> <img src="https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/challenge165.png"> </a>
<a href="https://yeahwrite.me/gargleblaster-165/"> <img src="https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/gargle165.png"> </a>
New to yeah write?
Welcome! This is a special kind of place, and we hope you will dive right in. If this is one of your first visits to yeah write, please take a look at our page detailing how yeah write works. If you’re having trouble figuring it all out, feel free to email us, and we’ll help get you started along your way. We think this is the best community on the web for writers who blog and bloggers who write. We’re thrilled to have you join us.
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