It’s the weekend, so the moonshine grid is open

I’m trying to write the moonshine post right now, but I keep getting jolted out of my groove by the sounds of the Grand Prix. That’s right, I live in the home of the great auto race and general mecca of car enthusiasts who have watched every incarnation of The Fast and the Furious. Go ahead, be jealous, especially because I drive an early-model Honda that has seen better years and I really do not care about cars. I know, it isn’t fair. But it is fun being in the middle of all the excitement, and like I said, I can’t focus. As I’m writing this, I can hear turbo engine whosie-whatsits roaring about a mile away. 

So why are we here again? Oh yeah.

That’s right! Moonshine. Duh.

Take a deep breath. Relax. You’re at the low-key area of yeah write. No prompts, no word count, just whatever blog post you like. One from your early 2005 blogging years that needs reviving, or a list of the top YA books everyone must read, or one about your raised flower beds and the gopher you once had to dispatch because it kept destroying your gladiolus. See, we welcome all posts at the moonshine. Just no commercial or sponsored posts, and we’ll get along swimmingly.

Birthday bash

Whew, what a week! We had birthday celebrations up the wazoo around here, as yeah write celebrated it’s THIRD BIRTHDAY. All the editors chimed in with stories about what yeah write means to us, and it was so fun reading about this community as we celebrated the best spot on the web for writers.

Sniff. Our babies grow up so fast, don’t they? 

So because we like to party big time, WE are giving YOU the gifts. Because we love you, and we love gifts. In a twist on our traditional random drawings, we are asking you to fill out this Google birthday gift registry with your preferences. This will be the last chance you get to sign up for birthday goodies! Only want to enter the drawing for one prize? Tell us which one. Want to be in the drawing for all of them? Select all the prizes on the form. The drawings will be held after the celebration has wrapped up, and we’ll announce the winners at the end of yeah write #157.

The birthday gift list:

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• a flip face caricature of your very own just like the yeah write editors use as our avatars
• a coffee mug featuring ML Philpott’s random penguins
• a premium WordPress blog or portfolio theme by WooThemes (delivered as a .zip file; you are on your own for installation and modifications)
• a 12-month subscription to  yeah write that will include up to 12 quick and dirty edits by our wonderful literary editor Louise for your planned submissions to the challenge grid or the speakeasy. Improve your writing and increase your chances of earning an editor’s pick or the jury prize
• a mystery package of books and other goodies from your favorite yeah write editors

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You must be a yeah write challenge and/or speakeasy subscriber to be eligible for any of the prize drawings. Subscribe here if you haven’t already!

And remember: this is the last chance you have to sign up for birthday presents, so act quickly!

Gargleblaster: the newest challenge on the block

If you thought last week was amazing, then holy cheeseballs, this week knocked it outta the park! Yeah write’s newest challenge, the gargleblaster, filled up after only 14 hours. 42 entries of 42 words, answering a single question: it’s loads of fun, and the wide turnout just proves it.

If you missed the gargleblaster this week, you can link up your post here at the moonshine, where it will get the attention it deserves. Gargleblaster #157 opens Monday with a new prompt. Check yeah write on Sunday for next week’s prompt, so you can get into the challenge before it closes.

Before you start drafting your next post …

Get ready for family-free month at yeah write. Starting with #158’s weekly writing challenge, families will be off limits as blogging subjects. No family posts whatsoever. Not your third-cousin’s nephew’s birthday party, your estranged evil twin brother, your mom’s cataract surgery, or even passing mention of a relative, blood or otherwise. The idea here is not that we don’t care about your families – of course we do! We love families – some of us even have them ourselves. But families are a ready, available subject and we want you to grow as writers. We tried this idea two years ago, and it was a complete success. If you need ideas, you can browse the archives here, ignoring and forgiving all the old formatting.

This is the badge you are looking for.

Over in the right sidebar is a list of yeah write badges containing the codes you need to satisfy the backlink requirement (also called a permalink) of the Inlinkz app. The badge for the moonshine looks like this:

Under the badge is a few lines of code. Copy that exactly then paste it into the “text” or HTML view of your post editor. If you don’t copy it exactly, you will get an error message from the Inlinkz app. If you get confused or your browser is uncooperative, visit the Inlinkz step-by-step instructions here. If all else fails, contact Inlinkz customer support.