A Time to Not Write

I’ve missed you, YeahWriters! I took two weeks off for a once-in-a-lifetime whitewater rafting/wilderness camping/hiking trip in the Grand Canyon. I brought several journals, certain I’d knock out 10,000 words toward a literary journal’s prompt I’ve had my eye on. That didn’t happen. On my last day, I gifted those empty journals to rafters who’d be continuing on down the river without me, having written exactly zero words.

I’m not sorry about that. There’s a time to write, but there’s also a time to live. So yes, there are stories to be told about this perspective-altering trip, but I was too busy living through that metamorphosis to capture any of it on paper. As writers, it’s important not just to observe and report, but to actually experience life. Had I been writing, I would have missed a whole lot of other things that might make for stories later on. Or not. Maybe some things are best just experienced and remembered, rather than written and archived. I’m not yet sure.

What I do know is that I don’t regret having not written, because for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was really alive.

So bring your stories to the grid this week, but remember to take a step back from writing every now and then to be sure that you are living a life worth writing about.

Nonfiction Know-How:

Constructive Criticism Part II

Ever hear “it’s better to give than receive?” Well, in the case of criticism, it’s certainly easier to give than receive. For part two of what has now turned into a two part post, we’re going to dive into receiving criticism. Because you know what? It kind of sucks, but it’s good for us as individuals and as a community. Like vaccines. Learn even more from Rowan here.

How to submit and fully participate in the challenge:

Basic YeahWrite guidelines: 1000 word limit; your entry can be dated no earlier than this past Sunday; nonfiction personal essay, creative opinion piece or mostly true story based on actual events.

1. In the sidebar of this week’s post, please grab the code beneath the nonfiction badge and paste it into the HTML view of your entry;
2. Follow the Inlinkz instructions after clicking “add your link” to upload your entry to this week’s challenge grid;
3. Your entry should appear immediately on the grid if you don’t receive an error message;
4. Please make the rounds to read all the entries in this week’s challenge; and
5. 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…

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