Living to tell the tale

This week at yeah write, we’re celebrating the life of the great Gabriel García Márquez who passed away this week at age 87. We won’t drown you in pithy quotes or long reviews —you can get that by Googling—but here are a few things we learned from this master that we think all writers should take to heart, here at yeah write and everywhere: 

Let your drafts simmer; walk away from them for a day or weeks or even years and then revisit; write constantly but throw away a lot of it; and have a healthy fear of bad writing. Márquez once said he never read his own published work “for fear I would repent.”

We think it’s a healthy fear that drives a good writer to take it through one more draft, to let it sit, to read a draft aloud trying to catch the awkward spots they wouldn’t notice reading silently, and every so often to say, “This was a good exercise, but it’s not good enough to publish.” Then to start completely over, writing something better.

Think about that for a moment. Let it sink in. It’s the yeah write way, but we didn’t invent it. And if it’s good enough for Gabriel García Márquez, it’s good enough for us.

Family-free for four weeks on the gargleblaster, the traditional challenge and at the speakeasy

All right, you’ve had plenty of warning. Starting this week, we’re declaring a family-free zone for one whole month. That’s yeah write #158 weekly writing challenge through yeah write #161 weekly writing challenge. Why are we doing this? Families are an easy subject. Conflict, tension, humor, romance – families have it all. But yeah write wants you to grow as writers, to think out of the box and get out of your comfort zones. So for the next four weeks, we want you to write about anything and everything except your kids or wife/spouse/significant other or your parents or anyone marked by a blood, marriage or otherwise legal relationship with you.

You have a really great family-centered post? Submit it to the moonshine grid, where anything goes and the grid is always rules-free. 

The gargleblaster ultimate question

This week’s ultimate question comes to us from Mr. Márquez himself. At 41 words, his answer is just shy of a gargleblaster, but we’ll forgive this particular writer just about anything.

“Tell me something, old friend: why are you fighting?”

The author’s response:

“What other reason could there be?” Colonel Gerineldo Marquez answered. “For the great Liberal party.”

“You’re lucky because you know why,” he answered. “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve come to realize only just now that I’m fighting because of pride.”

— From One Hundred Years of Solitude

The gargleblaster grid opens on Monday. Give us your answer in 42 words. Be creative, be imaginative, never submit your first draft of anything, even if it’s only 42 words long.

Adjusting the gargleblaster schedule…

One small change: since the gargleblaster grid has consistently hit its max of 42 entries mid-Monday, we’re moving up the schedule a bit. From here on out, we’ll open the grid at midnight on Monday and close it at midnight on Tuesday. Yes, that’s only 24 hours to post, but you’ve been doing it! We’ll announce winners on Wednesday.

Announcing our birthday gift giveaway winners to celebrate our third year!

The five prizes we were offering to five lucky yeah write subscribers:

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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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And the winners are:

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• Genna Claire of writeamuck [caricature]
• Mollie Claire of Mollie Claire [random penguin coffee mug]
• AZ Gringa of Bleached Bone Valley [WooThemes blog template]
• Alisa S of Ice Scream Mama [yeah write 12-month subscription]
• Janna of JannaTWrites [mystery package]

[/unordered_list]

Mollie Claire and Janna, please email us with your postal mailing address so we can send your packages. Genna, Gringa and Alisa, stand by for exciting details in your email. Thanks to everyone who entered and who celebrated our anniversary with us. Here is to a wonderful Year Four!

Individual yeah write challenge grid schedules

There’s a lot going on around here lately. To make it simple, we’ll lay out the multi-grid schedule here. (All times are US eastern)

• Sunday midnight: the gargleblaster prompt is announced in the kickoff post, and the speakeasy prompt is announced over at the speakeasy.
• Monday midnight: the gargleblaster grid opens for submissions.
• Tuesday midnight: the gargleblaster grid closes, and voting begins. The challenge grid and the speakeasy grid open for submissions. 10:00 PM: gargleblaster voting closes.
• Wednesday by noon: the gargleblaster winners are announced.
• Thursday midnight: the challenge grid and speakeasy grids close, and voting begins. 10:00 PM: voting for both grids closes.
• Friday by noon: the challenge grid and speakeasy winners are announced, and the moonshine grid opens.
• Saturday and Sunday: moonshine grid is still open, writing, editing and rewriting happening for upcoming week!

Get your badges!

To make it a little simpler for folks, we’re going to start putting the badges into the kick-off posts and grid posts. Here’s the badge for yeah write challenge #158 and this week’s gargleblaster. Copy the code under the appropriate badge and paste it into the html or text view of your blog editor. Having trouble? Contact christine@yeahwrite.me for tech support.

<a href="https://yeahwrite.me/writing-challenge-158/"><img src="https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/challenge158.png"></a>

 

<a href="https://yeahwrite.me/gargleblaster-158/"><img src="https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/gargle158.png"></a>

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