Why only one editors’ pick?

There is no predetermined number of editor picks during any given week when the invitational opens once we reach 30 or more on the challenge grid. We expect each challenge grid entry to meet our submission guidelines (sometimes, more than a few do not) then we hold the editors’ selections to a higher standard. Even if a challenge grid entry meets the basic requirements, that entry may have typos or grammatical errors. There may be a central conflict, but it’s a weak conflict. While covering the basics, the entry may fail to engage, incite, elicit any other question besides “why am I reading this?” 

If yeah write editors have read an average of 35 submissions multiple times (not counting the ones we remove from the grid for being anything other than a personal essay or traditional blog anecdote) for the past 123 consecutive weeks, that’s a whole lot of “why are we reading this?” mixed with the frustration of “is this supposed to hold value for the reader?” The challenge grid becomes one big blob of a blog post, it becomes harder for good-enough entries to stand out, and only the super strong make it to the other side.

Never has that happened more profoundly than this week, and we ended up with one pick.  Rarasaur took top honors from her yeah write editors as the sole editors’ pick and, consequently, the jury prize winner and honors from her yeah write community as crowd favorite with her breathtaking submission “Spilled Milk and Sweet Horrors.”

Jury prize winner and crowd favorite

“Spilled Milk and Sweet Horrors” by the eponymous Rarasaur

From the comments below her winning post:

Congratulations, Rarasaur. Please take your pick of the winners’ badges in the yeah write sidebar. You’ve earned each one.

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; especially if it was a tight race. The fun lies in getting better exposure for your blog and, in the spirit of competition, an incentive to improve your writing and blogging skills. It’s a win-win for everybody involved.

Thanks again, everybody, for submitting, 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.