Spread Your Wings
This weekend, I’m doing something COMPLETELY out of my comfort zone. I suppose now I have to tell you: At age 55, I’m doing a boudoir pboto shoot. Yes, in lingerie! I had to go out and buy stuff to wear, which just goes to show you how uncharted these waters are for me. I’m nervous, but also excited.
You don’t have to put on something lacy and get photographed in order to get out of your comfort zone. Why don’t you start by writing something you’ve never written before? Maybe try a poem, if you’re not a poet. Write nonfiction, if you’re a fictioneer (or vice versa). Scared to go outside of fiction? How about write a different genre, there are so many to choose from. I’ve said all of this before, and I’ll probably keep pushing. One of the best ways to grow as a writer is to try new things. We’d love to see something different and unexpected from you on the grids this week. At least take a stab at it; you can always decide not to hit publish. What do you have to lose?
–Stacie
Welcome to Week 450
Ed’s note:
HOLY smoke, 450? Four hundred fifty consecutive weeks with no break? I’m really proud of us. It’s been a long ride, and I haven’t even been around for all of it. Nobody has: editors come, and go, as their schedules (and burnout levels) allow. People have kids. Writers start and stop, and outgrow what they needed from us, and then come back for more. At least one YeahWriter is regularly published in magazines – you’d recognize both their name and the names of the mags if I said them. At least one YeahWriter has published books. So many YeahWriters have been published online and in anthologies of one sort or another. But even if you haven’t… If you’ve ever posted to the grids here, you’re family. If you’ve given feedback, you’re family. And if you haven’t done that… this is a great week to come join our little family. See you on the grid!
-Rowan
We’re kicking off the week in style at YeahWrite with both our competitive challenge grids in one post, plus prompts, tips, tricks and more. You asked, we answered! Keep scrolling down cause it’s all right here.
Submissions for this week’s challenges open on Saturday at 12 midnight and 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.
Having trouble getting started? Hop on over to our quick guide. And don’t forget to doublecheck the full submission guidelines before you hit that button.
Technique Toolbox: Year of Fearless Writing – Time Confetti
Ready to take yourself seriously as a writer? Not sure how, or not convinced you’re ready? We think you can, and are, and will be. This year is our Year of Fearless Writing, where we’re going to focus on the craft of writing, not the art, to take you from “I write” to “I’m a writer.”
In November, we’re focusing on time. Do you have time to write? How can you find or make it? One way is to schedule dedicated writing time, but another is to assemble it out of the time confetti all around you. If you don’t have enough time to do what you want, there’s still probably something you can fit into the time you have. Take a look at some ways to free up your time to write!
NaNoDoMore
Don’t get us wrong: we love NaNoWriMo. Several of our editors have “won” the 50,000 word November challenge. But as we’ve gotten older, families and jobs and, well, just life things, have taken over. But that doesn’t mean you can’t score a November win, even if you, too, don’t have time to bang out a whole novel. Check out our NaNoDoMore challenge, which asks you to do just that: more than nothing. Do something new. We’ve got 30 days’ worth of challenges for you to check out (some of them would take you more than one day, 30 is just a convenient number) and completing any of them can earn you a chance at our prize.
Nonfiction: Optional Prompt
The nonfiction grid has no mandatory prompts. However, each week, we will give you an optional prompt in case that helps your mostly-true story juices flow. This week we’re all gonna play along with Stacie: tell us about a time you did something outside your comfort zone! (Or, you know, if that’s outside your comfort zone, you can write about something else. It’s an optional prompt.)
Fiction|Poetry Mandatory Prompt
November is here and it’s a busy month for writers; there are competitions galore including NaNoWriMo and even our own NaNoDoMore. This month we’re bringing back a familiar prompt format to make things a little easier. We still have two prompts and both prompts are mandatory. The first prompt is a picture prompt, and the second is an emotion that you will need to convey through your writing. This prompt pairing is a good challenge to see how well you can show, rather than tell emotion.
The first prompt to incorporate into your story, a photo prompt, is this image by Fabian Catoni at Life of Pix. You can access a downloadable version of the photo by clicking on it.
Image credit: Fabian Catoni/Life of Pix
[Image description: A lithe shirtless young adult man in profile, wearing joggers/pants, gray socks, and black Adidas sneakers, leans forward and pushes off with his left foot while his right foot is on a skateboard. His undershorts (blue with a black waistband) appear above the top of his pants. The man is in the center of the frame, facing to the left of the frame, at a beach skatepark. To the left of the frame, an almost empty clear plastic Starbucks cup with a straw sits on one of the concrete platforms of the skatepark. The sun is high in the sky and the skater’s skin is glistening with sweat. He has short, type 4B or 4C* black hair, a beard and a mustache. In the middle ground behind the skater, other skaters are standing or walking around the skatepark. In the background there is a scattering of people on the beach, palm trees, and beach-front hotels.]
*not sure what 4B and 4C hair is? You can find more information by clicking the link at “type 4B or 4C” above or here, here or here.
When we say incorporate the photo, we mean “use the image to inspire your plot, setting and character(s).” Some questions you might want to consider: Who is this skater? What is his backstory? Why is he skating in the heat of midday? What is his relationship to the other skaters? Consider taking five minutes to look carefully at the photograph (or consider the image description carefully). Don’t write during this time. Set a timer on your computer, phone, watch, or an old fashioned egg timer to help you keep track. Start writing only once the five minutes are up.
The second prompt, from YeahWrite Editors, is to use the following emotion: remorse. For the purposes of this week’s story, we’ll be using definition 1 from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: a gnawing distress arising from a sense of guilt for past wrongs.
Remember with the emotion prompt not to use the word itself in your story. Instead, try to convey a sense of the emotion in other ways. For example, you might consider how the emotion is physically or verbally expressed; how a character might hold their hands or set their jaw, what a character’s posture is like or their tone of voice or their behavior. Show the reader how this emotion manifests, don’t just tell us that the character is feeling the emotion.
Poets: We’re exploring the kimo, a three-line counted form, over at the poetry slam this month. Since this form has a “no motion” requirement, consider how the image prompt might fit the form (you may want to use the emotion instead this week). Or write a kimo about anything else, or another form of poetry incorporating either of our prompts. If you want to write something that’s neither a kimo nor uses the prompts, our nonfiction grid does also accept poetry that expresses your truths.
Poetry Slam - Kimo
Between NaNoWriMo and family visits, who has time for a long poetry form? Not us, anyway. This November we’re focusing on the kimo, a three-line counted form with just a little more breathing room than the three-line counted form you probably already know. Come string some syllables together with us on the grid!
A QUICK NOTE REGARDING OUR GRIDS: Inlinkz, which supports our grid format, is currently upgrading its offerings and website which can sometimes result in a glitch or two. If you upload a piece to the grid and notice it disappears later on, please email us and let us know. This has been happening to one or two pieces each week. We will happily add it manually once we are notified. We apologize for the inconvenience, and are looking into alternative services. Thank you for your patience!
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Our tiniest challenge with the biggest bang is open the first Wednesday of every month from midnight to 10 p.m.
YeahWrite Super Challenge
Super Challenge #14 (fiction!) is officially underway! Good luck to all our participants as they anxiously await the final results! Missed out on registration? Make sure you sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any Super Challenge announcements.
Winners’ Round-Up
In case you missed them, you can find last week’s YeahWrite staff picks and crowd favorites all laid out for you on last Friday’s winners’ post. Leave the winners some love in the comments. They will love you right back, we guarantee it.
About the author:
Stacie joined YeahWrite as its Fiction Editor in early 2013 before becoming YeahWrite’s Executive Editor in 2016. She blogs at Stacie’s Snapshots and Tidbits and was thrilled to be honored as a 2015 BlogHer Voice of the Year (VOTY) for this post. Before retiring, Stacie’s career involved developing new medicines for cancer and autoimmune diseases, work that resulted in more than twenty publications in scientific journals. Now, she enjoys daily hikes with her dogs and spending more time with her youngest son while her oldest is off at college.
