With more than 30 posts on the weekly challenge grid, we unlocked the invitational and editor picks!

Yes! We made it to 30 posts and beyond, bringing back the editors’ invitational grid for the first time in a few weeks. It was a deep challenge grid, so congratulations to the bloggers who were chosen to compete for the jury prize this week: Michelle, Ken, Elizabeth, Christie, Joe, Jessie, and From Novels to Board Books.

Jury prize winner

“Deciding” by Ben Jackson at Dad of the Decade

From those eight amazing, moving, and amusing posts, the Jury Prize this week goes to Ben at Dad of the Decade, for his emotionally relentless piece, “Deciding,” about making an unfathomable choice: live or die. As the medical experts disagree on the fate of his unborn daughter, Emma, Ben brings to life the torment of facing what should never have to be faced, and of deciding what one should never have to decide.

Agony drips from every word as the tale moves along at a ticking time bomb pace. Ben rages at the injustice of doctors who are never villains, so he has nothing firm upon which the blows of his anguish can land. He writes lyrically about the cacophony of an MRI tube, “humming out the song of the future.” His dialogue is crisp, giving a false clarity to a situation that is anything but clear.

Ultimately, the story is an awful argument between brain and heart – between the rationality of a radiologist and the suffering of a father-to-be. But Ben too is clearly a logician. He attempts in vain to apply reason, to formulate meaningful mathematical equations to make the decision for him. In the end, though, science can only tell him so much and Ben realizes that the brain has no place here. This is a decision for the heart and, thus, a decision that has already been made.

Thank you, Ben, for sharing Emma with us. Grab your jury prize badge.

Crowd favorite

“Ready to Break It Off? Put Your Phone In the Trunk” by Christie Tate at Outlaw Mama

With an extended metaphor of person vs. drug addiction, a sub-plot of a friend who quietly models what a good relationship looks like, and a killer last line twist, Christie from Outlaw Mama takes Crowd Favorite for her post “Ready to Break it Off? Put Your Phone in the Trunk.” I totally would have been pulling over and crawling through my backseat checking for texts. Go grab your badge, Christie, and thanks for showing up week after week with your best stuff.

31 days to build a better blog starts at yeah write on July 1

OMG. Our summer series kicks off on Sunday!

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

Yeah write is 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.

Hosted by yeah write veteran and regular contributor Michelle Longo, 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.

Wait. Before you go

Congratulate this week’s winners in comments. Yeah write #116 opens Tuesday, the first weekly challenge of 31dbbb. Write a list post or keep with our standard challenge of a personal essay or traditional blog anecdote. We’ll have a lot going on at the same time, but what else is new? See you then…

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