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Vote for your favorite nonfiction, fiction and microstories here… after you read the post.

Hi. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend, y’all. Is this the only post you read all week? Do you skim the opening posts? Skip through the guidelines as you submit to the grid? Do you know about the submissions guidelines page, that has all the rules in one handy place?

Don’t.

You spend, hopefully, more than fifteen minutes writing your post. You take the time to have an idea, craft, edit, and revise. You work hard on your writing. Don’t miss the voting grid because you didn’t read the rules. It hurts you and it hurts me to write you a love letter on an otherwise perfectly good post that you wrote for another challenge, that’s got the wrong word count or the wrong badge or the ultimate question as its title. Hopefully you’re here because you take your writing seriously. That means someday submitting to a publication where you could get paid for your writing. This is the time to practice all your craft. Your job isn’t just to string words together, it’s to make sure that what you’re submitting is timely and within the submission guidelines of the publication you’re submitting to. Don’t waste all that time and effort putting together a story or essay that’s going to be rejected, not on its merits, but because you didn’t follow the rules.

And now, in a more cheerful vein, all three challenges – Monday’s nonfiction, Tuesday’s fiction and poetry, and Wednesday’s microfiction – are open below for your voting pleasure. If you want to vote on a grid, please take the time to read all the entries on the grid before voting for the best three. Speaking of rules, to vote fairly you might have to take a step back and read the rules again for each grid: for example, does that microstory really answer the ultimate question, or did it just make you laugh?

You get three votes on each separate grid. If you’d like to reveal the current vote tallies, just refresh the page after you’ve finished voting. Just a reminder: if you want to see the vote tallies, please use the device you voted from originally. Don’t double-vote just to see how your post is doing; it’s not fair to anyone and we’ll remove your votes.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

I got a love letter. Now what?

Trust me, it’s not any more fun to write love letters than it is to get them. I know that on the other end of that letter is someone who’s hearing “my post wasn’t good enough this week.” I’m not going to say this hurts us more than it hurts you, but we do know what rejection feels like. That’s why we never tell you that you didn’t make the grid without explaining what you need to improve.

Did you break a rule? Miss too many typos? Just skip that last proofread? Remember, there are no points for being first in line. All the entries you see on the grids down there are in random order. Take the time to give your post that last bit of polish that makes the difference between “okay” and “great.” Read the rules one more time before you submit to make sure you are following all of them. Bring your best, most careful work to the grid, and it will pay off.

If you are reading your love letter and you think the advice conflicts with other advice you’ve received on your writing, remember that we’re not the absolute overlords of writing but we do know what’s going to improve your chances in the voting and competition here at yeah write, from structure to grammar to visual elements in your post. Take a minute to listen carefully, even though it hurts, and see how you might be able to use that advice.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Thanks to those of you who took the time to write and submit to our grids this week. Thanks also to those of you who may not have had the time or inspiration to write a new post but who dropped by to read and vote – we love you! And welcome to those who may just be showing up to our little corner of the web. As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email us or hit us up on Facebook or Twitter.

Voting closes on Thursday at 10 p.m. US eastern standard time. [-5 GMT]

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