Now is the Winter of my discontent
Anyone who knows me even passingly knows how much I dislike the cold, grey days of Winter. In this hemisphere of the world, Winter is just setting in, and while the days are (mercifully) getting longer, the weather is still bone-chillingly cold and wet. So very wet. It rains when I walk my dogs in the morning, rains when I meet with my in-person writers’ groups, rains when I do the shopping, rains on my evening walks, rains when I go to bed. Look, I’m not saying that if I had a giant device to turn on the full concentrated power of the sun I’d do it, but… let’s just say I deeply identify with Megamind right now. I guess it’s good weather for writing though, right? Riiiight? Bueller? Help me warm up by heading over to Facebookor Discord to tell me how warm it is where you are. Please!
~Asha
This Week’s Writing Prompt is:
This week, your job, should you choose to accept it, is to write a story, essay, or poem incorporating the following prompt:
Trope: Adorable Evil Minion/Minions
We’re taking a cue from this year’s Scarlet Quill Society and getting some practice incorporating – or subverting – popular tropes. This week we’re using one of my personal favourite tropes; the Adorable Evil Minion (or minions, if you’d like more than one of them). As a huge fan of the comic sidekick, I’m a sucker for unlucky Igors that are smarter than the Evil Overlord they serve, goofy capsule-shaped groupies of equally goofy Baddies, and monster minions that would rather have their hair done than destroy the hero. Your challenge this week is to tell us about a Big Bad with a cute sidekick (or an army of them) who’s more likely to kill the hero with sheer cuteness than with any actual evildoing. When you’ve got your story down, come tell us about it! Share snippets of or links to your best story in Discord or on Facebook! Stuck? Check out last year’s — no, year before last! — series on responding to prompts!
Share your response in the Coffeehouse, located both on Facebook or Discord, by linking your blog post, Google Doc, or other file. Check out your fellow YeahWriters’ responses, and don’t forget to leave them some love in the comments!
Looking for our weekly grids? After nearly ten years, they’ve been retired. Read more about the latest changes to YeahWrite in the #500 Weekly Writing Challenge Kickoff Post.
The Schedule
We will release a new prompt on our blog every Friday at 12pm Eastern. Then it’s up to you! Write your response to the prompt on your own blog or website and share the link in the Coffeehouse, located both on Facebook or Discord. If you prefer to keep your work under wraps (and away from the eyes of potential publishers), you can still ask for beta readers in the Coffeehouse and share your work privately! Every Monday, we’ll check in to see how you’re doing and what your writing goals are for the week. Wednesdays are “Work-in-Progress Wednesdays.” Share a few sentences or even a paragraph or two in the Coffeehouse (no more than 250 words, please). Even if you’re not done writing, this could be the boost you need to stay motivated. Did you publish a book? Do you have a story in a magazine? The First Friday of every month is for self-promotion, where you can share commercial links to your work for purchase. (You can always share the news that you’ve been accepted for publication, though!) And of course, the entire community is here 24-7 to share your victories and setbacks, challenges and accomplishments. So come on in, pull up a chair, and say hello. We’re all writers here.
Upcoming and Ongoing
Sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any upcoming classes, workshops, or competitions.
Scarlet Quill Society (Free Workshop w/ Optional Paid Benefits)
Welcome to the secret back room where the Scarlet Quill Society meets. In this year-long workshop, we’ll be focusing on tropes! Love ’em or hate ’em, you can’t avoid ’em. For the purpose of this year’s workshop, we’re defining a trope as a building block of storytelling. It’s a device or pattern of events that is used to solve plot or character problems or communicate meaning efficiently and effectively. Check out June’s post, in which we take a look at tropes every submissions editor hopes never to see again, and then hop over to our YouTube channel to see the recording of our conversation with submissions reader (and frequent Super Challenge judge!) Genevra Hsu.
Scarlet Quill Society workshop posts are always free. In addition, we are offering a couple add-ons that we think you’ll find exciting and worth a few bucks a month: face-to-face (okay, virtual) monthly gatherings to delve into the topics and answer your questions, and an editorial backroom on Discord! And for a bonus, if you’re a paid SQS member and you can’t make it to a meeting, you can still send us questions beforehand and we’ll make sure to cover them.
Sign up for a membership today to join the Scarlet Quill Society and automatically receive the Zoom link and password for every meeting. One-off monthly meeting tickets can also be purchased on Kofi. At YeahWrite we believe information wants to be shared. If you can’t afford to join us for society meetings, we post the recording about a week later, and you’re welcome to leave the tip you can afford (even if that’s just a nice thank you comment). Check out our YouTube channel for more.
Super Challenge #28 (Fiction)
YeahWrite’s Super Challenge #28 (flash fiction) is officially underway! Good luck to all our remaining participants as they anxiously await the final results (which will go live shortly after this post!). Don’t want to miss out on all the fun? Be sure to sign up for our mailing list so you don’t miss out on any future Super Challenge updates.
WIP Write-Ins, AKA Co-Working Hours
NOTE: NO WIP WRITE-IN ON MAY 17!
Spontaneous Writing Challenges
About the author:
Asha lives near the beach in Perth, Western Australia, but hates sand between her toes. She began blogging at YeahWrite in October 2014 with this post, and YeahWrite was lucky to pull her on board as a Contributing Editor in December 2016. Asha writes flash fiction, short stories, and creative nonfiction. She is published in a variety of places and you can find links to her work at Asha Rajan Writer.
