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. If you made your way here through our NaBloPoMo grid, thanks for getting extra into it. That’s some blogging commitment. 

Reader votes

Two 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 hard work.

Let’s do some mathin’

Real quickly, let’s put your editor scores into perspective. There were five scoring readers, writers or editors this week. So if you take your total score beneath your thumbnail and divide it by five, 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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Rushing is the New Crack

Mary Balice Nelligan at ateachablemom

Editor 1 liner notes: Such a familiar scenario. I like the way the dentist adds urgency to the post – and the way she can’t figure out she might be simply avoiding the destination. ALL the destinations.  I’m guilty of it (and my husband even more so). We are so perennially late that NOBODY was surprised we were late to our own wedding.

Editor 2 liner notes: Well done. Great details.

Editor 3 liner notes: Cute idea. It doesn’t QUITE make it to the satisfying stage of “write as I am doing” style, but it was fun to read. Even though I rushed through it.

Voters’ mean average: 10.8

 [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

A Morning in the Day of a Life by Jessie Powell at The Jester Queen

I’m choosing Jessie’s post from The Jester Queen’s “A morning in the day of the life.” From the image of a child shaking a penis through a fence to the restrained frustration of parenting within the constraints of medication or lack thereof to the typical dialogue with a child who is trying to test how autonomous he really is – I found this post at once relatable and somehow distant from my own experience. It brought up both laughter and sympathetic groans – but I never felt sorry for any of the characters. To overuse an overused phrase: “It is what it is” and we deal with it.

An aspect I appreciated as a reader of stories, not just a sympathizer with lives, was the wonderful effect the slow reveal of detail had on the story. What started out as “We do not go outdoors naked” became more fully understood with explanations of why this child wanted to be in the extreme cold. I had an eye-opening Aha! with the description of cold students all around while “Sam was in shirtsleeves with soaking wet, heat-mottled skin.”  And that introduction of circumstance is then expanded on fully as the story completed its arc.

Congratulations, Jessie! And thanks for this reminder: “Let’s take your penis inside and put it in some underpants.”

Voters’ mean average: 9.8

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

guest editor’s pick by Louise D

Rushing is the New Crack by Mary Balice Nelligan at ateachablemom

It’s refreshing to read a post about time-crunch that celebrates rather than laments it. While Mary recognizes that her habit of setting up her day for maximum rushing opportunity bugs her husband and children, she cheerfully admits that she enjoys the adrenaline hit and wishes everyone would get out of her way so she could savor it in peace. Best of all, Mary manages to hang this post on a clean narrative framework when she so easily could have left it as a string of wry, self-deprecating observations. The actual writing of the post is part of her plot, bookending the opening and closing, the central conflict is the question of whether or not she will finish the post in time to get to the dentist, and in the resolution we see that she hasn’t changed a whit but is perfectly happy nonetheless. And finished her post. Funny, clever piece from a constantly-improving writer.

Congrats, Mary, on the double win.

[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

My Missing Vote by Stacie at Snaps and Bits

Editor 1 liner notes: I was afraid that this was going to be a “I’m disenfranchised because of the weather!” post, but it was the opposite. Well told, even if it’s a bit naïve in that the president doesn’t have all that power on his own.

Editor 2 liner notes: Well-constructed, pointed in its frustration without being overly emotional, informative from the narrator’s personal POV without being preachy.

Editor 3 liner notes: Love Stacie’s emerging voice, better every week. Misuse of “principal” in place of “principle” and lack of tightness brought this one down, but I’m still enjoying her one-paragraph sentences and the relative ease in a voice that used to sound stilted.

Voters’ mean average: 9.4

Honorable mentions

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

[check_list]

• Michelle Longo
• Cynking Feeling
• Samantha Brinn Merel
• Christie Tate
• Bill Dameron
• Kianwi
• Angela Ryan
• Kiki Oliphant
• Ashley Taylor

[/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!

$100 Amazon gift card challenge final update

Check this space on Sunday for the final results. We will announce the one winner who earned the most points during our four-week, cumulative point challenge.

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 #83 opens Tuesday. Bring your best stuff. Until then, please stop by Flood’s speakeasy for even more posts to read and enjoy.

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