Welcome virgins!

We had 5 virgins on the grid this week, a couple of whom had submissions returned, but came back after edits and fared well on the grid. We love when new people jump in with both feet and get all mucked up, yeah write style. We’re always available if you need help. Let your friends know about our place. And we hope to see you next week.

Jury Prize Winner

30+ entries means the editors were able to open the invitational grid for our favourite posts from the challenge grid. And what a grid it was – with depth of mood and expert scene setting and emotions both gut wrenching and amusing. but there can only be one jury prize winner.

Alisa from Ice Scream Mama takes the Jury Prize with her post “My Call of Duty”, is about how damn hard it is to be the lifeline for an aging parent. What sets her post apart is how she switches point of view – we experience not only her unromanticized guilty burden of the required phone calls; the only one left to make that connection – but also her dad’s bewilderment and fatigue at a life that confuses and saddens him. As one commenter put it, “The line ‘He allows himself the pleasure of closing them” really captures the desperation one feels – when closing one’s eyes is the only escape.” The scene is claustrophobic and there’s no easy way out, just a life he continues to live and a daughter who continues to call, even when she doesn’t want to. The author never cries in the story, but I sure did.

Alisa, grab your badge in the sidebar and display it with yeah write pride.

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Crowd favorite

Mary at A Teachable Mom takes Crowd Favorite this week with “Place Your Bets: The ‘L’ Word”, a spot-on rendering of those painfully embarrassing beginning days of a new relationship. When she accidentally lets loose an “I love you” way too early in her courtship, then backpedals, and forward pedals, and waits for his response – which never comes – we cringe along with her (while also secretly hoping it will turn out he was “the one”, unafraid to rise to the occasion and requite her bold statement).  And when you can also frame your story by harking back to the beginning of Desert Storm – all in 600 words? That’s good stuff.  Grab your badge, Mary!

BlogHer VOTY yeah write grid reminder

We’ve set up a special promotional grid for our yeah write subscribers who would like a little extra promo for their VOTY posts. Add the direct link from your BlogHer entry to the special grid and we’ll help you get a few votes. Our way of supporting the community that supports yeah write.

Weekend moonshine grid opens today at 6 p.m. eastern time!

Yeah write is now open on the weekends—no editors, no voting, no writer’s block—just hanging out in the clearing among the trees and discarded moonshine jugs. Use this chance to show the yeah write community the other side  of your blog—your top 10 lists, your stream-of-consciousness posts, that hilarious text message exchange with your brother. No commercial or sponsored posts allowed, but this will be a good space for letting us all know when you have a cool blog event coming up.

The moonshine grid opens at 6 p.m. eastern time each Friday and will close by 12:01 a.m. each Monday. Grab the badge from the sidebar and go find the perfect post to share!

Win-win

The thumbnails are now sorted in the grid from most votes to the least. In the case of a tie, the thumbnails are additionally sorted by page views. Part of the top row five? Please grab a winners’ badge from the sidebar and display it proudly on your own blog. Congrats!

Do not be discouraged if your blog has landed near the bottom of the grid; it is always a tight race. The fun lies in getting better exposure for your blog and in the spirit of competition as incentive to improve your writing and blogging skills. It’s a win-win for everybody involved.

Thanks again, everybody, for linking up, for reading, for accepting the weekly writing challenge. And for making yeah write the most welcoming spot on the Interwebs for writers who blog and bloggers who write.

Congratulate this week’s winners in comments. Yeah write #109 opens Tuesday…

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