[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Welcome to who’s on fourth where one member of the yeah write community will interview another yeah writer, and the interview will publish the fourth Monday of each month. Next in the series features Arden of Arden Ruth Writes interviewing Erica of free fringes.[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”grey” align=”align_center” style=”” border_width=”” el_width=””][vc_column_text]

yeah write on yeah write: Arden interviews Erica, founding editor of yeah write

Erica’s blog began years ago, mainly as an online journal. She wanted a place to save her short stories she’d written, not anticipating much more out of it than that. However, she soon stumbled upon NaBloPoMo in its inaugural year and decided to give it a shot, hoping to win the coveted grand prize: a new blog header. As you know, NaBloPoMo requires a post every single day for the entire month of November. At the time, Erica only wrote fiction. But she posted away even though she soon ran out of stories to share. [Ed’s note: yeah, right.] Taking a leap in a new direction, she wrote a personal essay and posted it, then another, and another. Her audience began to grow at an exponential rate and she soon realized that while her site was a place to share her writing, her greatest skill was growing a community.

Even though Erica’s fiction writing had begun to take a backseat to her personal essays, she found something new in the blogging world that she didn’t know was even out there: a community of writers like her.

So where does yeah write fit in to all of this?

One of the first friends Erica met online was Flood (if you’ve been around long enough, you’ll recognize the name). Erica and Flood followed each other everywhere around the blogosphere and they quickly realized that many people were posting thousands of words day in and day out, but they weren’t actually saying anything.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

community roots

Let’s get real for a second. Erica is a writer. That is her professional title. She went to school for it. It is who she is. So you can imagine it’s difficult to swallow when thousands of people call themselves the same thing, posting their blog posts to link-ups with hundreds of the same exact posts but yet none of them conveying anything of importance. Erica decided she wanted a place to go where she could bring writers together who had something to say (and who said it well) and perhaps throw some friendly competition in the mix as well.

So yeah write was born, four years ago this month. Flood came along with her and soon others joined this new little community. At the beginning of yeah write, there was no submissions editor. If you are just now joining us since the reboot, you can imagine how different it once was. The adrenaline of it was insane. We closed submissions at 50 entries, opening at midnight like we do now. People would set their alarms, waking up in the middle of the night to link up their post and we would close within two hours. It didn’t matter what the post contained at the time: nonfiction, fiction, anything people felt like sharing. No matter what, it went up on the grid.

Crazy fun? Sure. What Erica wanted when she started yeah write? Not so much.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

how does your garden grow?

Yeah write was turning into exactly what Erica had been trying to avoid. And while the community grew, there were always a few bad eggs. So Erica and Flood would read every single comment on every single post, moderating where necessary to keep their community in good spirits. But Erica knew this wasn’t what she wanted. That’s when the submissions editor position came about. It was the only way they could think to get the true writers out of the mix and avoid those who just wanted the traffic and didn’t care about the quality of their writing.

Erica was so intent on finding these particular writers that she would hunt them down across the web and attempt to get them to join yeah write. Many of us who now spend our time as yeah write editors and contributors joined yeah write this way. The camaraderie of it was just too hard to refuse. I for one can say that these folks have become some of my closest friends and that’s something you just don’t find every day (especially on the internet).

With moderated submissions, the grids became tighter, with better writing. These were posts you wanted to read over and over again. It had become exactly what Erica wanted when she first thought up the idea.

As with any new process though, every now and then wires would get crossed on why a particular piece made it on the grid. One person would think it was okay while someone else would not. So the submission guidelines were written. You all know this as the elusive ‘so what’. And with these guidelines, the recipe for the yeah write we all know and love was perfected. Sure, with each year, changes still came but they always seemed to make yeah write better. Change can be hard and some of these changes came with a little twisting of Erica’s arm, which is understandable when you’ve been doing things the same way for so many years. Yeah write is at its best right now, with top-notch writers bringing their best stuff each week. We simply can’t wait to kick off a new week each Sunday. That being said, we still want to grow. So bring your friends. We’d love to have them.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

four years later…

Yeah write is four years old this month and Erica has spent all those years working her ass off to make it operate efficiently. For four years, yeah write has not taken one week off. It’s been Erica’s life. Recently though, she stepped back and realized that her people had it under control. She didn’t have to do everything anymore. Now, Erica gets to be the owner that steps in only when she’s needed. Or in her words, she’s like the manager who just comes in once a week to fuck everything up (that’s not true). But after four years of non-stop yeah write in her life, we can say she deserves that role. It’s not passing the torch completely, but letting others hold it for a bit when your arms get tired.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

what’s next?

So where does yeah write go from here? Only the future can say. But we have some exciting things coming up, especially this September. Stay tuned for more details. But we can promise you this: we’re here to stay. And if you want to help us stay, consider becoming a yeah write member. It’s not just a donation, though you can do that too. But with a yeah write membership, you get perks as well. Win-win, right?

Please give a big thank you to Erica for creating a home for writers who want to polish their craft, get noticed, and most importantly, be a part of a community! I think I speak for all of us when I say that we wouldn’t know what to do without this place.

Follow Erica on Facebook at free fringes and Twitter at @freefringes![/vc_column_text][vc_separator color=”grey” align=”align_center” style=”” border_width=”” el_width=””][vc_column_text]Are you ready for the yeah write #211 weekly writing challenges opening this week? We hope so! Your badges await in the sidebar. Grab the code, paste into the text or HTML view of your post, then submit your post to the moderated grid for a little friendly competition. We’re glad you’re here.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]