On Tuesday, the final week of the summer writer’s series begins. We will still have prompts (optional) and a 500-word limit (not optional), and it will be a great opportunity to show off everything you’ve learned since early July.

Can I give you a brief peek behind the curtain? My kids’ summer vacation is winding up, and I’ve got 1,000 things to do before school starts: pre-K3, sixth grade and 11th grade. My 11th grader, a teenager brain-injured since she was 11 weeks old, and I have accidentally adopted her autistic boyfriend for the summer. He’s a wonderful boy and my favorite activity of the day with him is to ask him whatever I want. He doesn’t have a privacy filter nor, it seems, the capacity to tell a lie. He’s the exact opposite of his evil girlfriend who will lie to me about most anything she thinks will keep her out of a second’s trouble. 

It turns out closed head injuries are contagious, and my two younger boys are as challenging as their sister. The middle kid is spacey, the toddler is all hulk smash all the time. My husband, currently working on the east coast, likes to parent by iPhone then fall asleep on us before we’ve figured out what’s for dinner. He has also, by the way, ordered our toddler a pair of plastic, 8-in. Hulk gloves, arriving today by UPS. It’s hard to nearly impossible to get bopped in the head by our crackhead three-year-old over Face Time, isn’t it, Daddy? 

I’m sharing all this with you to say: I’m gonna let you guys take over the summer challenge grid next week. I need a few days to sob in my closet with a sun-warped Madame Butterfly playing on the Victrola. 

While I’m rocking back and forth, I’ll need volunteers to:

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• open the grid on Tuesday with a post, deadline: Sunday, Aug 12, must be familiar with WordPress
• open voting Wednesday night with a post, deadline: Monday, Aug 13, must be familiar with WordPress
• judge the entries and write a small blurb explaining your first choice, deadline: Thursday, Aug 16 by 2 p.m. US eastern, no WordPress experience needed, only access to email. 2-3 volunteers for this one
• collect the 2-3 judges’ blurbs and write the winners’ post, deadline: Thursday, Aug 16 by 9 p.m. US eastern. This one requires an experienced writer used to working under quick deadlines and familiarity with WordPress

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Contributing editors Flood and Kristin will still take care of handling the hangout grid and tweeting the challenge grid submissions. I’ll be watching over everything from the fetal position, and I’ll tweet the GOTVs.

Hey, Erica, if I sign up to do your job and everything, can I still be on the challenge grid? If you’re judging, no. If you’re writing one of the posts, it may not be an ethical issue, but it could become an issue of time. But I knew someone would ask, so I asked for everybody. Are you in? Check yes or no in comments or stick the note in my locker.

Contributing editor Kristin’s honorable mention

I had to reread Mamarific’s On the Bayou a few times before I felt like I got it all. Because I expected a linear story, starting with the gravel driveway in the first line, I didn’t realize that this post is really an homage to the author’s aunt, disguised as a profile. We get to see a beloved aunt’s zen, her joy, her work, her personality, her impact. I especially liked how the post ended, long after the aunt’s death, with an image that keeps this beloved inspiration close: “I often picture her behind her big Victorian oak desk, crafting a story with rich details of the local cypress trees, wild irises and bayou sights and sounds.” This line is really a recap of all we’ve been shown, and it works. In fact, I think the very last line can be snipped or pasted a few lines ahead. We know, Mamarific. We know that you attempt to channel her as a muse because you have already shown us that you do. Very effective structure. (But move the last line!)

Guest editor Deb’s honorable mention

There were terrific posts this week, and it was tough to choose. I thought Larks took the fear we all have (whether we’re mothers or fathers) that once we have kids, it’s all over: it’s zombie-land, generic-land, that we lose our mojo and our hipness (if we ever had it—not so sure I ever did).  In Bob from marketing at Giant International Conglomerate is trying to eat my brains and I bought his shirt, she made me laugh with the “gateway shirt” line and figured out how to use dialogue to tell a story that does the “show not tell” thing just right. I thought the last lines wobbled just a bit, but the rest was so strong, I was willing to overlook the wobble. 

Crowd favorite

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For the second consecutive week, Louise at Raising Ivy grabs the popular vote, this time with Your Turn. In 497 words, she unfolds a story entirely relatable for anyone determined to work it out with the in-laws. With a touching reminder at the very end that a treasure’s worth is sometimes revealed only after it’s given away, Louise prepares a place at the table for her readers, filling our bellies of  gumbo and goodwill. Well done.  

Jury prize winner

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Well, Larks, there you go: expressing the fears of the jury panel as you captured the highest number of points among the judges’ selections. None of us is quite ready to give up our individual style, yet we are prepared to award you the jury prize book chosen by Deb of MannaHatta Mamma and BlogHer debutante, this week’s guest editor. Email me your shipping address and we’ll send you a copy of Stephen King’s On Writing. Congrats!

Win-Win

The thumbnails are now sorted in the grid from most yellow star votes to the least. The top row five badges will return the first challenge week we fill the grid with 50 bloggers. For this week, because the grid had 29 entries, the array highlights the top row three.

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 #70 opens Tuesday in the hands of some amazing guest editors. Sure wish I knew who they’re gonna be…