Happy birthday, yeah write!

We’re three!! WE ARE THREE!! Woo-hoo!! Happy birthday to us! It’s been 156 consecutive Tuesdays without time off, a hiatus, a vacation, any of those things. We’ve worked through bank holidays, religious holidays, breaks in our sanity. For 156 weeks, we’ve hosted this friendly little writing competition, and we thank you for supporting us with your participation.

It’s been a wild time reading all of your stories, trying out new challenges, and working to grow this site into a place you can call home. Showcasing your very best work each week isn’t easy, but the spirit of community we have here makes it all worth it.

We get gifts for our birthday, right?

The best gift you can give us is the gift of spreading the word about yeah write. Talk us up on Twitter, Facebook, and in your other writing communities. In the coming year, we’re looking to expand our community and reach more people. Your endorsement of what we’re doing here is invaluable and goes a long way to making us a success. 

 We have gifts for you, too!

It’s our big week, but we’re giving you some awesome prizes! We get excited about birthday gifts, and we want to give you exactly what you want. So, in a twist on our traditional random drawings, we are asking you to fill out this Google birthday gift registry with your preferences. Only want to enter the drawing for one prize? Tell us which one. Want to be in the drawing for all them them? Select all the prizes on the form. The drawings will be held after the celebration has wrapped up, and we’ll announce the winners at the end of yeah write #157.

The birthday gift list:

• a flip face caricature of your very own just like the yeah write editors use as our avatars
• a coffee mug featuring ML Philpott’s random penguins
• a premium WordPress blog or portfolio theme by WooThemes (delivered as a .zip file; you are on your own for installation and modifications)
• a 12-month subscription to  yeah write that will include up to 12 quick and dirty edits by our wonderful literary editor Louise for your planned submissions to the challenge grid or the speakeasy. Improve your writing and increase your chances of earning an editor’s pick or the jury prize
• a mystery package of books and other goodies from your favorite yeah write editors

You must be a yeah write challenge and/or speakeasy subscriber to be eligible for any of the prize drawings. Subscribe here if you haven’t already!

The newest yeah write challenge is in full swing at the gargleblaster!

It’s week two of the gargleblaster challenge. Each week, a question will be posted and you are tasked with responding to it in exactly 42 words. Sound fun? Last week the grid hit the 42-entry cap by early Tuesday morning. This week, it closed by Monday evening. If you want in next week, you better act fast when the ultimate question prompt is posted on Sunday! 

And if longer fiction is your thing, don’t forget the speakeasy. We give you one media prompt and one sentence to incorporate into your piece, you give us 750 words or less of awesome.

What’s next? Family-free month at yeah write

Here is your official heads up: Starting with yeah write #158, we are beginning a four-week series of family free grids. We love your families, honestly we do. But we want to see you stretch your writing muscles. For four weeks, we’re going to ask you not to write about anyone related to you by blood, marriage, ritual, or communal living. Anyone you consider family is off limits. We did this two years ago, and it was a fun success. You can browse the archives here, ignoring and forgiving all the old formatting.

Feeling nervous about it? Afraid you won’t have anything to write about if you’re not writing about your family? Try a little mind-mapping, a really cool form of brainstorming introduced to yeah write during our 2013 summer series by Rosanna R. Grab some paper and some colored pens, and see where it all takes you. When you get somewhere interesting, you’ve got the beginning of your 2014 family-free month yeah write challenge post. We can’t wait to read it!

Have you met Comment Bob?

Bob loves the yeah write community spirit, and cheers on anyone who shows it on each post published to the challenge grid. Do you love to leave comments? Bob says go for it. Are you better at hitting the social media share buttons than you are at leaving comments? Bob says that’s awesome. Go for it. On voting day, do you campaign fairly for the best posts on the grid, feeling inspired by (instead of threatened by) your competition? Bob loves you so much, and will likely visit your blog’s sidebar, pom poms waving. Comment, share, like, vote fairly. Win your own Bob.

Scaled voting remains

When we get to 30 or more entries on the challenge grid, the invitational grid opens and the yeah write editors select their favorites.The jury prize is chosen as the best submission of the week. Invitational or not, we will host a popular vote where you’ll be able to select your favorites from the grid. The number of votes allotted is determined by the number of submissions on the grid:

• 01-10 submissions: one vote
• 11-20 submissions: two votes
• 21-30 submissions: three votes
• 31-40 submissions: four votes
• 41-50 submissions: five votes

The more submissions, the more votes. Remember how we asked you to tell your friends? Write a blurb beside your yeah write challenge button inviting them. Send a personal email. Stumble over a blog post you think would be perfect for the challenge grid? Email us the link, and if it’s a good fit, we’ll add it ourselves.

Odds, ends, reminders

• The badge you will need to add to your planned submission is over in the sidebar
• This immediate past Sunday is the earliest your submission can be dated
• Your post can be no longer than 600 words
• Personal essays or traditional blog anecdotes only
• There are no weekly prompts; the topic is yours. Be compelling
• The grid is open from Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. to Wednesday at 11:59 p.m.
• There is voting. Voting will take place Thursday from midnight to 10:00 p.m. US eastern
• The challenge grid is limited to 50 bloggers
• The winners’ post will be published by noon on Friday
• No self-promotional posts are allowed on the yeah write grid, including those containing links to other blog events and Internet contests

Yeah write #156 is open…

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