Well, we’re almost at the end of the inaugural yeah write seasonal writer’s series! Tomorrow, guest editor Saalon will continue this week’s topic of organizing story structure, then next Tuesday during yeah write #70, we’ll take everything we’ve learned for the past six weeks out for a test spin. Prompts will be optional, not required. The word limit will still be 500 words with an offer to upgrade to 1,000 the week afterward. 

What does all this mean? For yeah write #70, you can begin writing over the weekend instead of waiting for prompts on Monday. Not only is it still summertime, many yeah write regulars are also getting themselves or their families prepared for back-to-school. Only about 40 of you are paying attention, so next week should be another Zen grid allowing time for drafting, editing, tossing, drafting, editing, reediting, reading aloud, proofing and publishing without worrying about the grid closing.

Wanna know a cool, open secret? An anonymous donor who appreciates the good work yeah write has done over the summer for beginning, emerging and experienced writers has pledged one $100 Amazon gift card toward writing tools, inspirational materials and anything you can find on Amazon to help improve your blogging craft. Once the grid claws its way back to 50 weekly (moderated) entries, we’ll kick off a four-week challenge using a cumulative point system. May the best writing blogger with the highest point total and least flying monkeys win. 

What to look for as you’re reading this week’s submissions

Reading as a reader

The writing should be inviting and the story should flow effortlessly.  Did the writers keep your interest, especially on topics you knew nothing about before reading their stories?

Reading as a writer

Is the post written the yeah write way?  Remember, the writer has the rest of his or her natural days to write whatever and however. When writing for yeah write, there are guidelines to follow.

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• It needs a clear introduction, a reason for telling the story.
• It must have a central conflict: the one problem or event moving the story forward. The “so what”. If there is no so what, there is no story.
• It has to be more than a journal entry written for one person, the writer. It’s supposed to be a personal essay/work of fiction/work of non-fiction/piece of creative non-fiction designed for a specific audience, the readers and voters of the grid.

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Reading as a mechanic

Pull out your purple pen. Your yeah write editors have given you a head start by only allowing posts with 500 words or fewer onto the grid; don’t worry about post length. But do worry about clear language, correct spelling and correct grammar unless, of course, the writer is using well-crafted dialect or slang as a stylistic choice. Does anything interfere with the readability of the post such as an overzealous application of freakish typefaces? The writer’s content should be the focus of the space, free of distractions.

How yeah write voting works

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• Everybody gets three votes. Yes, yes, I know: when the grid has 50 entries, you get five. Today, the grid has fewer than 50, you get three.
• Unless there is a program glitch on our end or willful treks to various Starbucks for new IP addresses on your end, voting for your own post should be disabled. If I added your post for you, the app won’t recognize your IP address as the owner of the entry, so please be on the honor system about it. I do validate each vote like a crazy person, redistributing those pesky self-votes evenly among the poor at various food banks.
• Click on the thumbnail to read the post, click the yellow star to vote for that post.
• The page is gonna refresh after each yellow star click, so you’ll have to work your way back down to the grid to do it again.
• Sometimes, it will seem as though the Inlinkz app isn’t registering your votes. Refresh the page manually, and you should see the yellow stars have disappeared. You may have to change browsers. Keep calm and carry on.
• After you’ve voted three times, all the yellow stars will disappear and the current vote tallies will show under each thumbnail.
• You are free to campaign for your favorite entries on Twitter, Facebook, your blog and any other social media, but please please encourage your visitors to read through a few submissions first. They may find something they like about us and stick around awhile. Plus, yeah write voting day is not Internet clicking contest day—no flashing your submission number to the camera or scrawling it on your boobs/manboobs. We read, we consider, we vote on merit.
• Voting will close on Thursday at 9 pm US eastern. The winners’ post, including the jury prize winner and the crowd favorite, will publish three hours after that.

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Yeah write #69 summer challenge grid is open for voting.