Yeah write virgins!

There were three virgins on the grid this week! Thank you to everyone who’s been spreading the good word of yeah write and thanks to the virgins for working your way around the grid. Please join us again next week.

Reader votes

One (off-grid) reader  and three writers from the challenge grid submitted complete yeah write vote-o-rama tracking spreadsheets. Their votes, along with three yeah write editors, combined for this week’s jury panel prize. Thanks, guys, for your commitment and hard work.

Let’s do some mathin’

Real quickly, let’s put your editor scores into perspective. There were seven scoring readers, writers and editors this week. So if you take your total score beneath your thumbnail and divide it by seven, you’ll get an idea of where you landed in the yeah write criteria.

Intangibles, such as a reader’s emotional connection to the theme of the piece, can sometimes override pure numbers and push the reader toward selecting an actual favorite from lower scoring entries. Which is how editors’ picks very often than not come from the middle of the grid instead of the top.

[check_list]

• 12         The author meets all of the criteria for a winning yeah write submission
• 10-11   The author meets most of the criteria for a winning yeah write submission
• 7-9       The author meets more than half of the criteria for a yeah write submission
•   6         The author meets half of the criteria for a winning yeah write submission
•  3-5      The author meets few of the criteria for a winning yeah write submission
• 0-2       The author does not meet the criteria for a winning yeah write submission

[/check_list]

We each take notes on the entries, which I call liner notes. For the managing editor’s pick and the jury prize winner, those liner notes will replace the summaries written on the picks by our contributing editors so you can get a better feel for our thought processes.

 [divider_header_h3]Jury prize winner[/divider_header_h3]

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Is That My Future I Smell?

Christie Tate at The Outlaw Mama

Editor 1 liner notes: Perfect. Dialogue, details, structure, flow. Hugely funny.

Editor 2 liner notes: Great beginning. It had fabulous moments, but got wordy in parts. Still, I could definitely see what was going on—love the details.

Editor 3 liner notes: Funny story and loved seeing a young Outlaw Mama, but I felt distracted by some sloppiness with punctuation and the voice sounded slightly forced compared to Christie’s best stuff. It sucks to be compared to your best self, right?

Voters’ mean average: 11

 [divider_header_h3]contributing editors picks[/divider_header_h3]

[image width=”125″ height=”130″ align=”left” lightbox=”true” caption=”” title=””]https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Kristin_profile.jpg[/image]

editor’s pick by Kristin W

Taking Mom for a Drive by Varda at The Squashed Bologna

I’m choosing Varda’s “Taking Mom for a Drive” from The Squashed Bologna. Despite doing a lot of dry exposition at the beginning of the post, meaning more Telling than Showing, I found the post engaging and readable. I chose to see the post as a metaphor for the drive. It rolled slowly along, with a few bumps – or bobbles – but once it got going, the scenery and pit stops make it well worth the road-trip. Also, the background that Varda provides is necessary, not superfluous, to allow the reader to appreciate the satisfaction of seeing her mother finish the entire salmon teriyaki. And slurping miso soup became an tear-jerking triumph.

The best section of the post for me was what started the waterworks going. It is not only descriptive (you all know how I hunger for description!), but it also used the structure of a complex sentence to make the reading feel like a farewell after a long, lovely day. “There was a bit more sparkle in her eye as I kissed her good-bye, squeezed her hand, promising, as always, to return within a few days.” See how it sounds like a hug, then a kiss on the cheek, than a held hand, and then a turn towards the door? Well, I see it, so Varda must have done something right in the set-up.

Voters’ mean average: 8.8

[image width=”125″ height=”130″ align=”left” lightbox=”true” caption=”” title=””]https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Reedster_profile.jpg[/image]

editor’s pick by Cindy R

Is That My Future I Smell? by Christie Tate at The Outlaw Mama

Details—not florid language, but those simple details that allow the reader to put an image in her head of your scene—can make or break a post. This week, Outlaw Mama outdid herself with her hilarious post “Is That My Future I Smell?” about a misdirected email gone awry, and her fumbling attempts to get through her beyond-awkward conversation with her boss about it. Disclosure: I hate flowery language. You don’t need it. Christie proves that simple language used well paints a picture that resonates with a reader’s very fiber. A wool skirt reeking of urine? Check. An awkwardly nervous Administrative Assistant I crouched hiding on a toilet? Check. A train wreck of a conversation with her boss that grows more and more uncomfortable as it moves to the failings of his wife? Check.

 One of my favorite novels —one of the few I read over and over—is Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, a study in the absurdity of low level academia. This isn’t lightly given praise – but Christie’s scene ranks right up there with Jim’s disastrous overdrinking at his department chair’s home, ending in him burning up the quilt on his bed with his cigaretter. Read it, then read Outlaw Mama again. Then think about simple language and resonant details, and begin again.

[divider_header_h3]managing editor’s pick[/divider_header_h3]

[image width=”125″ height=”130″ align=”left” lightbox=”true” caption=”” title=””]https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Erica_profile.jpg[/image]

editor’s pick by Erica M

Birds, Bees and Babysitting by Azara at The Tesseract

Editor 1 liner notes: This post would be a masterpiece if it started with the sentence “Five blond moppets. . .” and revealed the birth control aspect at the end. But even so it’s a wonderful piece of writing that captivated me from the start. If I hold it to an impossibly high standard, it’s only because I see the potential for greatness here.

Editor 2 liner notes: “We’re playing Hell!” Best babysitting story. Good, but not great.

Editor 3 liner notes: Enjoyed this immensely. Liked the frame, the detail, the relatable aspect to it. What I don’t like is that I don’t know her twitter handle.

Voters’ mean average: 10.4

 

Honorable mentions

In no particular order, these bloggers were mentioned in the editors’ notes as close runners-up:

[check_list]

• Kathryn McCullough
• Mama Mzungu
• Samantha Brinn Merel
• Melisa Lunt

[/check_list] 

New winners’ badges

Jury prize winner, editor’s pick and top row three badges are all over in the sidebar. If you won one, grab one. Congratulations!

Did you leave a thoughtful comment on all 26 posts? This badge is for you.

Thank you thank you to those of you who braved work hours, firewalls, CAPTCHA and comment moderation to comment on every single one of the 26 posts on the grid.

Please grab that green badge out of the sidebar and display it proudly. You are one of the best parts of yeah write and our community thrives on your enthusiasm.

$100 Amazon gift card challenge updates

Check this space on Sunday for current results. Everything you’ll need for the week will be in that one post: new badges, optional supernatural prompt, updated Amazon gift card tracker and helpful links.

Win-Win

The thumbnails are now sorted in the grid from most editor points awarded to the least. 

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; just getting on the grid is an accomplishment these days. 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 accepting the weekly challenge. And for making yeah write the most welcoming spot on the Interwebs for writers who blog and bloggers who write.

Yeah write #81 opens Tuesday, he final week of the Amazon gift card challenge. Bring your best stuff. Bring your best friend. Until then, please stop by Flood’s speakeasy for even more posts to read and enjoy.

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