Pork, anyone?

If you’re telling a nonfiction anecdote (and if you’re not, sidle on over to the speakeasy with your fiction and poetry), you know the ending.  You know your uncle lofted the burned pork tenderloin across the dining room and, for months, the dog licked the hardwood floor where it landed; you know the dog died, the receiver fumbled, the friend fell in love with her married mechanic and kept disconnecting wires in her Fiat’s engine so she could go back.

In fiction, you have to create characters and keep writing, keep moving them around on the page until they show you their ending.  If you impose your ending on them, they don’t breathe as well and they read like puppets, not like real characters with whom you’d want to eat slightly burned pork or sabotage a car over. But, in nonfiction, the ending is there for you like a beacon, and what you must do is find the best path from here to there.

Try a direct path.  Write in the direction of that ending like you’re gunning a car and all the cops are busy at that accident back there.  Or tiptoe up to it because you want to surprise us.  But don’t meander; we want to get there without a lot of stopping and starting and side trips.  We want good tunes and a so what, even from the virgins (Welcome, virgins!). If you find yourself writing the words “…but I digress,” back up!  Back right over that mantra of the lazy blogger, steer back to the main road and gun it.  That’s better.  Let’s go. 

Challenge grid

What you need for the challenge grid: a classic yeah write post that is not linked up anywhere else and the willingness to read about forty other non-double-linked yeah write posts.  You need some time to read or re-read our submission guidelines and FAQ. And some more time to come back and vote fairly for a crowd favorite on Thursday.  

Invitational grid

The best posts with the most compelling so whats will be moved by the yeah write editors onto the invitational grid, from which a jury prize will be selected.  Please consult this checklist for hints about what makes, or doesn’t make, an invitational-worthy post.  Invitational grid posts also remain on the challenge grid.  The invitational won’t be made public until popular voting opens on Thursday.

Odds, ends, reminders

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• Your post can be dated no earlier than Feb 10, the day the yeah write #96 badges were officially posted
• The grid is open from Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. to Wednesday at 11:59 p.m.
• It is limited to 50 bloggers
• Voting will take place all day Thursday from midnight to Friday at midnight
• The winners’ post will be published at noon on Friday
• Our new weekend moonshine grid will open Friday at 6 p.m. and close Monday by 12:01 a.m. 
• No self-promotional posts are allowed on the yeah write grid, including those containing links to other blog events and Internet contests
• Combining your yeah write post with other blog events meant to maximize your exposure and minimize your effort is a no-no

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Your chance to support yeah write

The focus at yeah write should be (and is) its close-knit community and its learning environment. We don’t load advertisements on our pages or distract from our visitors’ experience with sponsored posts. Participating in yeah write has always been free and, for certain subscribers, it always will be.

It takes real money to run this thing, though, and for those of you who would like to donate toward the upkeep of this community, we are introducing the monthly subscription. For five dollars a month, you will help keep yeah write operating each week, ad-free. You can subscribe one month at a time or change the quantity on the subscription form to 2–12 (or 1,000) months at a time and pay for your monthly subscriptions all at once. 

For those of you who’ve already become a supporting subscriber, we give thanks. For those of you ready to support us, here’s the link to the necessary details. 

Bring us your best stuff

Bring us your best stuff when you know it’s gonna be the best on the grid. 

Yeah write #96 is open for submissions…

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