Editor picks and invitational grid
Yay! We hit the magic 30 post mark this week and voila! The editors opened the invitational grid. Thanks to yeah writers new and old who accepted the yeah write challenge this week. Six bloggers competed for this week’s jury prize and we congratulate all of them: Sam, Quinn, Samantha, Calamity Rae, Therese, and Kylie. If you visit the sidebar, you’ll find your editor’s pick badge to display on your blog.
Jury prize winner
“The Day I Should Have Eaten Breakfast. And Worn Pants.” by Samantha Merel at This Heart of Mine
The editors often get questions about what sort of posts we’re looking for on the challenge grid. One of the categories we accept is the personal anecdote. What’s a personal anecdote, you might ask? Well, you could look to our definition: It’s “more than a listing of events that happened one day, more than a journal entry for your own benefit. Your entry should have a beginning, middle and end.”
Or, you could read this week’s jury prize winner, “The Day I Should Have Eaten Breakfast. And Worn Pants“ by Sam Merel at This Heart of Mine. Sam spins a funny story about one of those small but memorable events in life – a self-deprecating look at her attempt to impress the law firm partner by donating blood. On an empty stomach. In a skirt. It doesn’t end well.
Sam’s post is a reminder that you don’t need to write about the huge issues in life to have a winning post, though those posts can certainly be compelling and jury prize-worthy, too. Yeah write also celebrates the well-told tale of daily life. Sam’s winning post engages us from beginning to end with humor and heart.
Crowd favorite
“The Trials of a Drug Trial: Special K” by Calamity Rae at Calamity Rae
Calamity Rae takes her first crowd favorite win with “The Trials of a Drug Trial: Special K“, a harrowing look at her months-long participation in an inpatient drug trial to test the effects ketamine on patients with chronic depression. She relates the long bad trip in clear and simple prose: “I spent hours unable to speak, trapped inside my head.” She describes the “thought prison” she endured until a nurse recognized her “fractured mental state” and she was released. It’s a model of showing vs. telling in writing. The author doesn’t need to add drama; the action is dramatic enough. You’ll find your crowd favorite badge in the sidebar.
Congrats also to the rest of our top row 5: Samantha, Kylie, Erica, and Sam! We have top row 5 badges for each of you—grab one if you earned one.
Weekend moonshine grid opens today at 6 p.m. eastern time!
It’s the weekend, and yeah write guest editor Natalie D is setting up her moonshine grid and bathtub gin just for you. If you have a favorite post to share or just wanna hang out drinking a little apple cider, please catch up with Natalie starting at 6 p.m. eastern time today. She’ll be wiping down the bar by midnight on Monday. The weekend crew is a fun group, you should stop by.
Halfway there: BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo at yeah write
If you are participating in NaBloPoMo with us, give yourself a pat on the back. Today officially marks the halfway point! Running out of ideas? Maybe it’s time for a roundup of your favorite NaBloPoMo posts? Throwback Thursday? Wordless Wednesday? A blog post about blogging? And I’m positive you have more stories to tell that would fit nicely into our submission guidelines for next week’s challenge grid. We know you’ve got your best stuff still inside you. Check out our guide to a winning yeah write post before you link up for yeah write #136.
We’re blogging every day here at yeah write too. Visit our growing NaBloPoMo archives.
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.
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…
As always, take a moment to congratulate our winners. Let your favorite bloggers this week know that their posts moved you and inspired you as a writer. Come on back next week for the challenge grid and every day in November for our special NaBloPoMo guest post series.
Thanks a lot this article, it is actually fantastic!
High fivin’ the Top row 5 for a job well done! Kudos to all who get their act together enough to write a Grid worthy post! I didn’t get to read everything this week so not voting for me but there was fantastic writing and storytelling among the entries I did manage to read.
I had no idea when I started blogging (just a few months ago) that I’d find such an amazing community! I had so much fun reading everyone’s posts and finding new blogs to follow. Congrats to the winners and thanks for all of the support!
Rachel,
Congratulations on your first Yeah Write win. I am sure that there will be many more to come. I know that everyone is looking forward to your next post.
Someone once told me that I need to learn how to accept a compliment so I humbly want to say thank you, and that I was in fantastic company – several of whom I voted for. What a great feeling to part of that top five crew. I want to ditto the above: “What a Lady knows” was a GREAT read. It was a fun week of commenting and meeting some really awesome people who also happen to be fantastic writers. And a big thanks to the Yeah Write staff for helping this newbie learn the ropes and for the warm welcome. The grid was packed with writing that inspires and I’m lucky to have found this community!
Congrats to Sam and Rachel and the rest of the top row 5! I also love Stacie’s post, although I now am having nightmares about my three dogs ringing my doorbell day and night. Props too to Natalie and Christie for consistently awesome entries.
Grats to all the winners! It was one of those weeks where I felt like I could probably throw a dart to vote and still be confident it was a worthy post.
Congratulations Rachel and the rest of the top row five! Also, congratulations to Sam on your Jury Prize! I loved all of your pieces. The writing across the challenge grid was really fantastic this week. In keeping with Erica’s tradition, of acknowledging other favs. I truly enjoyed Therese’s “What a Lady Knows” post.
Here I am with my new tradition of congratulating the winners while revealing my non-top five votes: I really liked Quinn Read’s whisky post (and moved it to the invitational) and I loved yeah write editor Stacie’s dog bell post. If yeah write editors were allowed on the invitational, I’d have moved Stacie up there.
Oh, and I voted for Q’s for his originality.
Thanks, everybody, for another great week!
This is so awesome, thanks so much Cindy! It was fun to look back and remember that day. I have another law firm blood drive story from a mere eight days ago that may or may not have ended the exact same way. If the Einstein definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” I may very well be insane. I’m feeling next week’s post already…