We’re counting down to the yeah write summer writer’s series!

July 2 through August 13

For seven weeks, we’ll be suspending open submissions on the grid as we bring you a series of guest posts designed to improve your writing and your writing spaces. We’ll be covering how to write for an audience, create a compelling narrative, write sincerely and authentically, design an inviting blog space, and a few other topics that will knock your socks off. If you don’t  wear socks, pick another motivation and the series will make it happen for you. 

Keep an eye out for the first opening email on Monday, July 2. We’ll be guided by prompts and guest writers, so don’t write anything specifically for yeah write #64 until you read the first guest post. Also? Get some sleep. No need to wait up until midnight to grab a spot. The grid will be open each Monday to Thursday as we wend our way through some learnin’, no racing to link up involved.

For those of you who feel your writing is on target and you’re just here for the beer, the hangout grid will remain open throughout the series. As usual, only one post per blogger per week, so if you’re hanging out, you’re skipping that week on the summer series grid. No shame in that. Summer is for doing whatever you want.

The summer grid FAQ are here.

Hey there, virgins

There were seven newbies on the challenge grid and eight (!) on the hangout for a total of 15 virgins.  Thanks, you guys, for taking the bait and for those who brought you here for, well, bringing you here. I hope we didn’t kill you with our toxic brand of  kindness and support.

[divider_header_h3]editor’s pick by Erica M[/divider_header_h3]

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When Kimberly of Sperk first linked her blog to the grid many moons ago, I mistook it for a commercial site. I was just about to send her one of my infamous “your yeah write submission” emails when I decided to click around. Her blog was not, in fact, a commercial site, but one hyper-focused on a parenting theme. Well, what could I say? I let it stay on the grid.

This week, Kimberly, after numerous faithful submissions, has won editor’s pick with an evocative, emotional post Hope After Divorce. She successfully placed me, her reader, at the feet of her soon-to-be ex-husband flaunting their shiny, expensive shoes as her marriage was being legally dissolved. I tried on her inexpensive slacks as she and I attempted to stand tall before the court. I was with her as we stood outside of the courthouse and cried—our marriage over, but our hope continuing in the lives of our little girls.

It is very rarely necessary to yank your readers back and forth with strong, emotional language that could possibly trigger their own traumatic memories just to provoke a reaction. Understanding that, Kimberly was strongly disciplined in her writing, economic in her words and straight-forward in her language, yet drew me into the tale gently and decisively. Well done, Sperkowitz. Congrats on your very first editor’s pick. I wish you and your girls well and look forward to reading about the rest of your lives together.

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Kimberly, click here to embiggen and download your custom Flood photo for your blog!

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[divider_header_h3]lurkers’ favorite posts[/divider_header_h3]

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lurker’s favorite by Flood G

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Michelle, click the photo to embiggen and download your custom image from Flood for your blog!

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lurker’s favorite by Jen W

This week my pick is Kelly’s Writing In The Margins Bursting At The Seams’ prompt-inspired Forever This Time. It is simply a wonderful, engrossing and complex piece all sparked by three words: a blue blanket, a thunderstorm, a picture. The small physical details of how the girl “will worry her finger over the bits of the blanket that have pilled and gathered unbidden upon the blanket’s surface” are breathtaking. Using the word worry as a verb raises the writing to great heights. The storytelling is masterful. I love how the details of the picture and blanket are brought back at the end as the girl becomes “the smooth over the scratchiness of my life.” Great story arc, interesting sensory details, and fully fleshed out characters make this a gripping and appealing glimpse into a domestic scene. Well done!

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Kelly, click to embiggen and download your custom photo by Flood for your blog

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lurker’s favorite by Kristin W

In Tara’s post on Pohlkotte Press And For Tonight, she manages to create strong, real images with a minimum of frill.  This poem told a cohesive story as it allowed deep emotions to emerge, but not drown the tale.  I was reminded of stories like “The Twelve Dancing Princesses”—stories that allow characters to lead evenly weighted double lives – in details throughout the poem.  Tara also made sure to be consistent in her details. The narrator pins her hair up early on, and a few stanzas later she is taking the hairpins out. In the first line she has removed her heels before entering, and later she is described as  re-entering the house “without a light on or a face seen.”  In both cases, the images of being unheard, unseen, unseeing is reinforced.

Something else I appreciated about this submission was its approach to the recent dialogue that began (this time) with an intentionally divisive magazine cover.  Her reference to being “enough” in the very last line wraps up the conflict introduced at the start of the poem even as it reminds us of the invented conflicts in current events.  For those reasons, and because it’s just a beautiful poem, I’m choosing “And For Tonight” as my lurker’s favorite this week.

Congrats Tara! And thank you for a gorgeous post.

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And For Tonight by Pohlkotte Press

The yeah write voters agreed wholeheartedly with Kristin W and chose Tara at Pohlkotte Press as their favorite. Congrats, Tara on the double win. Two custom murals for you! I like this one even better.

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Tara, click the photo to embiggen and download

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Win-win

The thumbnails are now sorted in the grid from most yellow star votes to the least. For you guys on the top row, click the plus symbol at the top right of this page to grab your top row five winners’ badge. Congrats.

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; it is always a tight race. The fun lies in getting better exposure for your blog and in the spirit of competition as incentive to improve your writing and blogging skills. It’s a win-win for everybody involved.

Thanks again, everybody, for linking up, for reading, for voting. And for making yeah write the most welcoming spot on the Interwebs for writers who blog and bloggers who write. 

Yeah write #64 opens Monday as the kickoff to the yeah write summer series. Who can’t wait?