Congratulations to this week’s editor picks!

When the challenge grid has 30 more or published submissions, the yeah write editors open the invitational grid and fill it with their selections for the week based on this spreadsheet. From the editor picks, we all huddle under a special tarp in email and choose the jury prize. Congrats to yeah write #121 editor picks 50 Peach, Christie T, Alicia B, Alisa S, Jacob C and Rachelynne. Please grab your editor pick winner’s badge in the sidebar.

Jury prize winner

“The Boys of Fall” by Alicia Benton at Imperfectly Perfect

When your yeah write editors are reading the posts on the challenge grid each week, we are looking for stories that are, of course, written to our submission guidelines, but we are also looking for the different. What makes any given story of a generic. mundane activity different from any other version of the same thing? Is it fancy, convoluted prose? Is it a story structure so distracting we can’t follow the writer’s intent? Is it foregoing a central conflict altogether and just throwing it all up there, hoping the emotional subject of the piece will grab the readers?

Here, at yeah write, it’s none of those things.

What made Alicia’s story of a heartbreaking loss in a youth football game the winner of this week’s writing challenge? It was the pacing of her thoughtful narrative, the care with which she selected the accompanying photos, and how she protected her young protagonist from derision and his own self-criticism. If she had sent her entry to us beforehand—we offer “quick and dirty” edits of planned submissions to our supporting subscribers—we likely would have helped her with the ending so it would flow more seamlessly into an actual conclusion. Acknowledging how hard conclusions are to write well, especially in quick burst blog posts, that was our main quibble with her piece, but it’s fixable.

Congrats, Alicia, on the win. Please pick up your jury prize winner’s badge from our sidebar for display on your blog.

Crowd favorite

“There’s a wall up in his studio apartment, and it’s me” by Alisa S at Ice Scream Mama

Alisa is one of our more popular bloggers on the challenge grid each week, and today’s win, her third in five weeks, proves it. Long gone are the days when Erica M would spend an hour helping her add the yeah write badge to her post, then another hour walking her through the uploading process. She answers comments on her posts and, as many others in our community, still takes the time to comment on the other blogs participating that week. Through it all, she’s become a disciplined writer who is always open to feedback, whether the feedback comes from a yeah write editor or a lower-than-expected position on the grid after voting takes place.

Alisa revisited her complicated relationship with her aging father in this week’s challenge. Even as our community voted on merit for her piece, the emotional impact on her readers, many of us with senior parents, cannot be underestimated in this moving retelling of an afternoon spent just trying to get her father dressed for a day with his grandsons. Well done, Alisa. Please pick up your crowd favorite badge in the sidebar.

Did you know yeah write is open on the weekends?

After all the hubbub and anxiety of the writing challenge, we know you need some non-competitive downtime, and that’s why Michelle Longo hosts the yeah write weekend moonshine grid just for you. Please join us beginning Fridays at 6 p.m. US eastern with any post you feel like sharing. As long as it’s not a commercial post or commercially sponsored, it’s welcome.

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.

Before you go, please congratulate the winners in comments

Or, give encouragement to those who come out and support us all week after week. A good word is always nice to share with others.

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