It’ll look good on you – Grab your badge!
Badges are ready which means today is the earliest your yeah write #101 weekly writing challenge grid posts can be dated.
Celebrations agree with y’all
With 37 entries and eight posts on the invitational grid, we think the party-rock atmosphere is pretty darn sweet. Your party-time editors want to keep offering up the prizes for your chills, thrills, and haunting memories. Keep your eyes peeled for virgins to the yeah write experience—and keep inviting your friends to the party!
Challenge v. speakeasy, each limited to 500 words
Did you love the 500 word limit as much as the editors did? We so appreciate the efforts of those who cut and snipped and edited down to meet the word requirement. Your yeah write editors think the results were well worth the effort. The stories were complete and detailed, and we loved the sharpness that emerged. We’re sticking with the 500 word limit for the yeah write anniversary celebration, right up to yeah write #105. We can’t wait to hear more of your amazing tales! Last week, we linked to a few summer examples of 500 words. If you haven’t checked them out, do so now: Here, here, and here!
The gifts keep coming! Last week we had two random winners of a custom badge (congrats, TriGirl!) and Jennifer Egan’s Welcome to the Goon Squad (congrats, Cierra!). We still have lots of presents for you during the anniversary celebration. Look for prizes of all different types—gift cards, free editing, web design, subscriptions, books and more!
The grids open Tuesday, so start working on your traditional blog anecdotes for the challenge grid. Remember that it’s 500 words or less of true stories told fully, honestly, richly.
Submit your fiction and poetry over at the speakeasy—it provides the first line, and the community is loving and flirty. There are prizes over there, too. Not feeling fictional this week? Not a problem, but take a gander at other people’s stories. Don’t forget to vote! Want to link up NOW and don’t care for rules? Our weekend moonshine grid is still open—everyone is welcome—except solicitors. (Girl Scout cookies excepted.)
Open submissions
Open submissions have permanently returned to yeah write. No more queueing up to get on the grid, but all submission guidelines and FAQ still apply. Aside from the 500 word limit for the anniversary celebration, we ask just one more thing. Please don’t share your “written just for yeah write” posts with other blog events. Thanks so much! Your post’s subject matter is up to you as long as it has a tightly written introduction, a clearly defined story line, and doesn’t try to sell us something or bore us to death. Find the funny or unusual or poignant in the everyday. Writing well about the snore-fest of the everyday is the trial and beauty of the challenge grid.
Before you start your winning submission
Expose yourself to great writing! Reading well-written sentences is the best way to improve your own creative process—and its results. Spare time and effort by not reading blogs that aren’t written by those who are well-read, and try the best you can to worship at the Less is More altar (especially if less = less than 500 words!). And it bears repeating: We love great stories, we love emotion, we love to laugh, we love to be surprised. It hurts our feelings when a rush to publish leaves a trail of misspellings, comma splices, and too many ifs, ands, or buts. Before you submit an entry to yeah write, read your post once in your head and at least once aloud. The truly brave writers will read it out loud to someone else before a final edit. Bring us your best stuff; don’t settle for good enuf.
Spread the good word of yeah write
Between kissing the Blarney Stone and watching for snowdrops and catching the latest Law & Order marathon on TBS, take time to write and to talk up yeah write. We keep chugging toward the goal of hitting the maximum of 50 bloggers on the challenge grid, and we need your help—keep spreading the good word of yeah write! The week we hit 50, if you’ve recruited a yeah write virgin to the challenge grid, you’ll be eligible to receive the 12-month, $10 a month supporting subscription donated by one of our yeah write editors. The $120-level donation contains, each item upon your request:
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- a wet and sloppy kiss on the mouth from your yeah write editor of choice
- a text link in selected weekly sponsor highlight posts
- a custom editorial on one selected yeah write challenge grid entry (worth $40 USD)
- a quick and dirty evaluation of 12 planned submissions to the challenge grid, an average of one planned submission each month, before the weekly challenge grids open
- an evaluation of your blog itself on content and design with clear direction on what’s working and what can be improved (worth countless USD)
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Don’t keep yeah write such a secret. We know you know some storytellers who would love the camaraderie, the community, the comments.
Read well, write well, rewrite often. Yeah write #101 weekly writing challenge grid opens Tuesday. No more than 500 words. This time, I know we said that already.
