[simple_box_1] Please welcome today’s voting guest editor Jessie P who tweets as @jesterqueen and blogs at Jester Queen.

The judges for this final summer writer’s series jury prize were Michelle L at The Journey, Cindy R at The Reedster Speaks and Liz R at Studio Liz.

Flood edited submissions, moderated the challenge grid, and managed the hangout grid. [/simple_box_1]

This summer marks the first real chance I’ve had to participate in yeah write. Like Jane D, I’m new here (Um, unlike her, I didn’t read the whole archives. But I’m seriously impressed that she did).

I’ve been watching the grids for some time, waiting for my chance to jump in. And I was never a hangout grid kind of girl. I wanted to participate in the challenge grid. It wasn’t the possibility of winning that drew me. As the matter of fact, I flee from competitions in most circumstances. The appeal for me lay in the atmosphere. This group of writers reads and comments, and the comments include a mixture of supportive love and constructive criticism. It’s that second thing I yearn for.

But, and this is a huge issue, by the time I got together a post just for yeah write each week, the challenge grid had already closed at fifty because the posts would fly up at a frenetic pace.

The yeah write summer writer’s series marked the first time I was able to post something and actually get it on the grid. I participate in a lot of challenges, most of them prompt and length-related. So I’ve enjoyed the weekly idea sparks, and I’ve thrived on that 500-word limit. I’m very good at ramming my word count right up against the maximum without going over. But then, I’m also a total geek. 

All of this is to say that I have been thrilled to finally get to join in this community, and I’m really excited that Flood has volunteered to keep moderating the challenge grid, even as the word count goes up to a thousand when the regular series returns. I can’t wait for the first week that the grid hits fifty again, and when it does, I really hope to be in that number.

But let’s get down to the business of judging! As usual, this week’s entries were simply wonderful, and I don’t envy the judges their jobs.

Guest editor Michelle’s honorable mention

The notion of being in charge runs through The Knitting Bartender by Louise Ducote, right down to Louise’s refusal to comply with the rules even though it meant losing her job. The smaller theme of Louise the bartender biding her time, doing what needs to be done, working towards a goal has a large, satisfying payoff. Her tale’s final phrase “it was a beautiful spring night, still light when I walked out” captured perfectly the life she was leaving behind to start anew. 

Guest editor Cindy’s honorable mention

Bill Dameron’s The F-Bomb is clever without being cloying. Bill uses character development, dialogue, tension, and humor to craft a story that pulls together all of the elements of quality writing the yeah write summer series has highlighted. His elderly mother’s disapproval—and Bill’s pushback against it—illustrates how we so often revert to our childhood roles when our parents are present. But what I loved most was husband Paul’s futile attempts at compromise as Bill feverishly sought out support for his position. We never outgrow our desire to defy our parents, no matter how ridiculous. This was so fucking good, I felt like calling my parents and letting loose a string of curse words—just because I can.

Guest editor Liz’s honorable mention

I loved the way Christie of Outlaw Mama created an atmosphere of tension and exhaustion in Post-Partum Love Story: I hate you. Perhaps it is because I’m not far removed from the anxiety of knowing the baby is about to cry at any minute, but this post made me uncomfortable in a real way. The rhythm of the phrasing as she went down to the basement reminded me of slowly plodding down steps in a sleepy stupor, methodically out of habit, scraping the last bits of strength and sanity. The conclusion, which was both sweet and sour, was believable and cathartic without being trite. 

Yeah write #70 crowd favorite

[image width=”190″ height=”183″ align=”left” lightbox=”true” caption=”” title=””]https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/blueleaf_winner_crowd70.png[/image]

The crowd favorite by far was Bill’s F-Bomb. I have had so many similar conversations with my mother. (She won’t read my novel Divorce: A Love Story because it has 52 F-Bombs. She claims her real problem with it is that it’s an e-book. I know better.) Bill speaks not just to the roles we assume with our parents, but also to the changing role of the audience in reading.  Readers and writers alike used to be schooled to believe an author who resorted to cursing was writing tripe. The stereotype has been disproved repeatedly, and yet an intolerant attitude lingers. Some do still find it unacceptable for a character to let fly and believe a writer who allows it to happen is undisciplined.  Bill is standing up for authentic writing here, for capturing language as it exists instead of caving to prudish pressure. Fuck yeah.

Yeah write #70 jury prize winner

[image width=”190″ height=”183″ align=”right” lightbox=”true” caption=”” title=””]https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/blueleaf_winner_jury70.png[/image]

Here’s something you won’t see every week: one of yeah write’s contributing editors won this week’s jury prize.

Let me emphasize, Kristin W had no idea this was coming.  She participated on a whim because she had a week off from her regular role. She didn’t contact the judges, and she didn’t make any subtle suggestions on Twitter.  She just wrote a damned fine piece about her realization that she couldn’t live in Spain with a man who couldn’t pry loose from his controlling family.

Her story evoked similar emotions from all three guest editors.

Cindy says, “Her growing anguish over her lover’s decision morphs into a newfound freedom of self as the tension of the piece releases into the sunlight of a new day.”  

Liz explains how perfectly Kristin showed, rather than told, her dilemma, saying, “I felt Kristin’s frustrated attempts to control how the family of her soon-to-be ex thought of her, and I desperately wanted to tell her to steal a bottle of their wine and go enjoy herself in Spain. When she finally let them go, I loved the description of her freedom.” 

And Michelle really sums it up by explaining, ” This story isn’t just about uprooting one’s life, it’s about what happens after, when life goes on.”

Congratulations, Kristin. You absolutely earned your prize

Win-Win

(Most of this section has been blatantly plagiarized from the text Erica M usually puts here. My inner academic cringes because I refuse to put quotation marks around her words, and my attribution for the whole area consists of these two sentences.)

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 21 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 #71 opens Tuesday, and everything will be back in Erica M’s capable hands.

[line_divider_thick]