The jury is out
I don’t know about you, but November was a little of a bust for me in terms of writing. Between the holidays, a camping trip, and school-related activities for the kids, it was all I could do to keep up with YeahWrite, let alone my personal projects. Luckily, NaNoDoMore was in full swing and I was able to check a couple of things off the list that kept me from feeling like a total failure. This month is promising to be a little more relaxed, starting with two days of jury duty this week that overlap perfectly with the micro challenge. If I’m lucky, I’ll have two days of uninterrupted writing time while I wait in the jury room; if not, well, you’re in good hands with the other YeahWrite editors, who will be helping to keep an eye on the grid.
Last call
We have news! As you may have read in our monthly mailer, this is your last chance to participate in the microprose challenge as-is! Starting next month, we’re launching 48 in 48, our updated micro challenge that gives you 48 hours to write exactly 48 words on a given prompt.
What’s changing:
- 48 in 48 will open on the first Saturday of the month instead of the first Wednesday.
- The prompt will be announced in that week’s kickoff post instead of a separate post.
- You’ll have 48 full hours to write instead of 22!
- Word limit is set to a consistent 48 words *exactly* instead of varying week-by-week.
- Voting will open on Thursday along with the fiction and nonfiction grids.
What’s staying the same:
- Unique and interesting prompts!
- Tiny wordcount!
- Fiction and nonfiction are welcome, as long as they correspond to the prompt, but no poetry, please.
We hope you enjoy the new micro challenge as much as we plan to. In the meantime, get on the current grid with the below prompt! You’ve got 22 hours.
Five…four…three…two…one
We’re counting down to the end of the year, and in the spirit of holiday giving, we’ve got a gift for you: five words which you must incorporate into a 50-word microprose story. That is, we’ll give you five words, and you add 45 of your own for a total of 50.
Your five words are:
- pine
- light
- cover
- burn
- drift
Tips and tricks
- You can use any recognized definition of the prompt words.
- You may change the tense or number of the word (light to lights or lighting), but be kind to the judges—we have to be able to spot your word.
- No compound words or changes in word meaning (for example, light to lightning, or burn to burnout).
- You may write in any genre or on any theme (with the usual caveats regarding editorial standards, etc.—see our FAQ for more info).
- We are looking for prose, not poetry.
Happy writing!
This is the badge you need:
Below is the YeahWrite badge you need for this month’s microprose challenge. Under the badge is a few lines of code. See that? Copy it and then paste it into the “text” or HTML view of your post editor. If you don’t copy it exactly, the image will not appear correctly in your post, and you will receive an error message when you submit the post to Inlinkz. If you have any questions regarding adding this code to your post or website, please contact us at editors@yeahwrite.me.
Need a hand?
Microprose sounds easy. After all, how hard can it really be to write a story with fewer than 100 words incorporating a prompt or two? But it turns out it’s our hardest challenge to really get right. Whether you’re a seasoned micropro or a brand new microwriter, it’s worth taking a minute to glance through the tips and tricks our editors have put together, like this quick refresher on what makes a micro great, or this one on how to incorporate mandatory prompts into adjudicated challenges. Make sure you make it to the vote this week: check your wordcount (we count those footnotes!) and prompts!The microprose challenge ends in:
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How to submit and fully participate in the Microprose Challenge
Basic YeahWrite guidelines: must be in response to the prompt found above; your entry can be dated no earlier than Wednesday, December 4; nonfiction, fiction, whatever, told in exactly 50 words, including the five prompt words. You may enter only one microstory per weekly challenge.
How to submit and fully participate in the challenge:
- Please grab the code beneath the microprose badge in the body of this week’s post and paste it into the HTML view of your entry;
- Follow the Inlinkz instructions after clicking “add your link” to upload your entry to this week’s challenge grid;
- Your entry should appear immediately on the grid if you don’t receive an error message;
- Please make the rounds to read all the entries in this week’s challenge; and
- Consider turning off moderated comments and CAPTCHA on your own blog.
Submissions for this week’s challenges will close on Wednesday at 10pm ET. Voting will then open immediately thereafter and close on Thursday at 10pm ET. The winners, as always, will be celebrated on Friday.
Thank you for sharing with us your hard work! Good luck in the challenge…
Loading InLinkz ...About the author:
Christine Hanolsy is a (primarily) science fiction and fantasy writer who simply cannot resist a love story. She joined the YeahWrite team in 2014 as the microstory editor and stepped into the role of Editor-In-Chief in 2020. Christine was a 2015 BlogHer Voices of the Year award recipient and Community Keynote speaker for her YeahWrite essay, “Rights and Privileges.” Her short fiction has been published in a number of anthologies and periodicals and her creative nonfiction at Dead Housekeeping and in the Timberline Review. Outside of YeahWrite, Christine’s past roles have included Russian language scholar, composer, interpreter, and general cat herder. Find her online at christinehanolsy.com.
