We’ve got virgins and winners, the best combo ever

Welcome to the five virgins who linked up this week! Your yeah write editors and regulars are here to greet you with giant virtual bear hugs. In honor of our summer series kickoff, we gave everyone an extra vote because we’re fun and spontaneous like that. The lazy, hazy, hot, and humid days of summer haven’t slowed us down and we’ve got badges to pass out and winners to crown. Let’s do this.

Crowd favorite

“Smiling Lessons” by Cindy Reed at The Reedster Speaks

Although we aren’t eligible for the invitational grid or the jury prize, yeah write editors may compete in the challenge grid like any other blogger and this week, editors went one-two-three in the popular vote. Crowd favorite goes to, um, me! Thanks everyone for voting for “Smiling Lessons,” my feel-good post about addiction and mental illness. I think I’ll grab that crowd favorite badge over there.

Congratulations to the rest of our top row three! Submissions editor Rowan G was runner-up for “Passive Voice is Destroying My Marriage” and executive editor Erica M rounded out the top three with her post “the writer’s mission.” Go snag your top row badges and display them with pride.

Comment Bob is showin’ the love

Who does Bob love? Why it’s Nate from The Relative Cartographer and Robbie K from Fractured Family Tales! Nate’s a relative newcomer to yeah write who has jumped in with great posts and participation. Robbie? Well, she’s been around since the very beginning and we love her to pieces. They each win our spirit award this week by leaving actual thoughtful comments all over the place in support of their gridmates. Congratulations Nate and Robbie! Go nab your very own Bob in the sidebar.

Weekend moonshine grid opens today at 6 p.m. eastern time

It’s the weekend, and Natalie D will shortly be setting up the moonshine grid and bathtub gin just for you. The moonshine grid is the flip side of our weekly challenges: a no-stress link-up where we accept anything except commercial or sponsored posts. Natalie’s just chillin’ this weekend with free sweet tea in Dixie Cups and Waylon & Willie on the stereo. Join her! Closing time is midnight on Monday.

Last week for separate grids

Summer is a time for the simple things in life: family, friends, long lazy days, and kicking back a little. With that in mind, we’re about to slow the challenge schedule down for the summer.

Here’s how it will work: starting next week (yeah write #170), there will be one combined summer grid per week for all of your fiction, non-fiction, poetry and gargleblasters. The summer grid will open on Tuesdays at midnight and close on Thursdays at midnight, at which point voting will open. Voting will close by 10:00 pm on Thursday (all times Eastern).

The summer grid is an easy, laid-back kind of place.  We’ll provide an ultimate question for the gargleblaster folks, and the rest of you are welcome to use it – or not – to inspire your personal essays or longer fiction. You’ll want to follow the usual yeah write guidelines, of course. Keep your gargleblasters to exactly 42 words, your personal essays to 500-600 words, and your fiction pieces to 750.

The weekend moonshine grid will operate as usual – the rules are even simpler over there, so bring your longer pieces, your how-to’s, your favorite pieces from your archives, whatever you like. And as for commercial content, the answer is the same all year round on all grids: don’t do it.

Let’s get this (summer series) party started

We’re also about to kick off our summer series. If you’ve already signed up, we’ll send instructions to the e-mail you used when registering. If you haven’t, well, here’s a handy little button to help you take care of that!

We’ve got three separate lounges open for various levels of constructive criticism and writing help: the bronze lounge for those of you who want a little help from your friends; the silver lounge for those who are looking for a more focused writers’ workshop experience; and the gold lounge for those who want an editor’s in-depth review and critique. Get all the details here, then head over to the yeah write gift shop to register.

Win-win

The thumbnails are now sorted in the grid from most votes 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; especially if it was a tight race. The fun lies in getting better exposure for your blog and, in the spirit of competition, an incentive to improve your writing and blogging skills. It’s a win-win for everybody involved. Thanks again, everybody, for submitting, for reading, and for accepting the weekly writing challenge. And for making yeah write the most welcoming spot on the Interwebs for writers who blog and bloggers who write.

Before you go

Take a moment to congratulate this week’s winners in the comments, and give a shout-out to your favorites on the grid. Come back next week and spin another yarn for us in about 600 words.

Yeah write #170 opens with the kickoff post on Sunday, the gargleblaster on Monday, and the challenge grid and speakeasy fiction jam on Tuesday. Be sure you’ve subscribed to our email list to get notice when prompts are posted, grids open, and voting begins. It’s easy to do! Just sign up right here. And then come back and bring your best writing to the best writing community around! See you next week.

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