Fall in!
If you know me at all, you know fall is my favorite season. Well, and winter. But mostly fall cause it means winter’s coming. I got to wear a sweater most of the day yesterday and I was thrilled.
See, for me, fall is a season not just of beauty but of anticipation. The holidays are coming. My birthday, my sister’s birthday. The trees start to turn my favorite colors (and not because they’re on fire). The first rains come, and the earth breathes a sigh of relief. In the high desert where I grew up, it’s time for “second spring,” a renaissance of grass pushing through dead summer straw, a few more weeks of softness before winter. And then frost starts to touch the edges of things, and you can get out the thick quilts, make tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, cuddle down with a mug of cocoa stuffed to the top with whipped cream or marshmallows. It’s baking season, and visiting season, and knitting season.
And when the dark closes in early, it’s writing season. NaNoWriMo (or NaBloPoMo) is coming up, as well as the fall writing competition season, including our own Super Challenge. School is in session here at YeahWrite, too, with our first class on October 7. And through all this we’re still running challenges every week where you can test your mettle, get constructive criticism, and claw your way to the top of the popular vote.
But it’s not all about the popular vote at YeahWrite, folks. We also have our editorial staff picks to hand out. See, while there’s a popular vote winner every week, we don’t always give out a staff pick. Our editors comb the grids to find, not just the best writing on our grid this week, but what we think is pretty darn great writing anywhere anytime. Picks are based on writing quality, how successful the author is in conveying information, and just plain style. If you got a staff pick this week, grab your badge from the sidebar and wear it with pride! The great part is that we don’t have a finite number of picks to hand out. That means that if two, three, five, or even all the works on one grid are fantastic, we can give them all kudos.
The other benefit of the editors’ pick, of course, is that unlike the popular vote we’ll tell you why we liked that post. So don’t just skip reading the blurb if it’s not about your post; you’ll pick up some handy pointers about what makes good writing great that you can apply to your own work. For more of that critical feedback, keep an eye on our Roundup for a quick rundown of trends we see each week. We try to highlight the good stuff and point out problems that more than one writer is struggling with. There’s probably a handy tip in there for you right now, so check it out!
Once you’re done reading through the Editorial Staff Picks and Roundup (and congratulating the winners in the comments), keep scrolling down to check out who won the popular vote on both grids. If you earned the highest number of votes in any challenge, you are this week’s Crowd Favorite! If you came in first, second or third, you get “Top Three” honors. Grab your badge from our sidebar!
Looking for your badge? Both grids have the same Winner, Editorial Staff Pick, and Top Three badges. It doesn’t clutter up our sidebar, and they’ll still look pretty on yours!
YeahWrite #335 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Nonfiction
It’s not just the little moments that make this piece, although they’re there:“I try to avoid thinking about all of that,” I tell him. “Why did you go to the Holocaust museum then?” I am not sure how he knows about that. For me, it’s the sense of immediacy that really pulls this essay together. Anusha has expertly juxtaposed far-off events with the present tense, adding just enough hints that the conversation is imaginary to keep the reader engrossed in her dreamy narrative. It’s a tender piece about the persistence of collective memory, about a yearning for contact. At its heart, it’s a very human piece that turns out (like its subject) to have been made of stardust after all.
YeahWrite #335 Weekly Writing Challenge Staff Picks:
Fiction|Poetry
Most writers agree that the most difficult thing to execute is a complete story in few words. Kathunk gave us the full tale of summer’s departure in only three lines of a sijo. Not only that, the poem has humor, sass, and a full helping of consonance. The hard work of finding precise words and arranging them to achieve a perfect tone is very apparent here.
Rowan’s Roundup: YeahWrite Weekly Writing Challenge #335
You get a twofer this week:
- Sometimes I, like you, come to the end of an essay and I wonder if it’s clear enough, or if I should write an explanation of what I really meant to say. And then I come to my senses and realize that if my essay is so unclear that I have to explain it AGAIN, I should edit it instead so it actually says what I meant to say in a way that my readers can understand the first time.
- A list of events in chronological order isn’t a story, it’s a diary entry. Think of the difference between asking a small child what they did today and asking an adult. The child will say “we had breakfast and then I brushed my teeth and then I got on the bus and then the bus drove to school and then…” but the adult will say “you won’t believe what happened: so there I was, trying to work on this article about what it takes to change the name of a street, when Jen came around the corner with one shoe off and the other one in her hand…” See the difference? You want to know what happened to Jen. The other “story?” Meh, so what?
Hi, fictioneers. Remember how I said I address problems as they accumulate, not necessarily as they appear? Well I’ve accumulated enough points for your annual reminder that packing your story with a bunch of florid descriptions full of five-dollar words only makes you sound clever to people who also don’t know what the words mean. To everyone else, you sound like a dying wizard. From one recovering wizard to another… let’s not. It’s great to put a couple really gorgeous moments in a story, but if you try to make the whole story one ornate, overwritten paragraph after another, you will inevitably make it interminable, not incredible.
That’s it for this week! Remember, we don’t always give out a pick on both grids; if we were impressed by several posts on one grid we’ll give them all picks, and if nothing really stood out for us we’ll hold off. If you didn’t get a pick this week, read back through the Roundup to see if you can use some of this week’s tips and tricks.
If you’re lost in the middle of the grid and wondering how you can get a little more feedback on your posts, check out our membership perks!
Everybody: before you go, please take some time to leave your favorites a little love in the comments, and don’t forget, the Weekend Writing Showcase opens tonight at 6pm Eastern US Time!
Congratulations to the Crowd Favorites at YeahWrite #335
The thumbnails are now sorted in order of most votes to fewest. Ties in the overall number of votes are broken by number of editor votes.
Congratulations if you’re at or near the top! Writing well is hard work, and we’re honored you’ve chosen us this week to showcase your entry.
If you’re at or near the bottom, don’t be discouraged. You’re in the right community for learning and growing as a writer, and we are always available with resources for those who ask nicely.
To our readers and voters: thank you! See you next week.
Loading InLinkz ... Loading InLinkz ...About the author:
Rowan submitted exactly one piece of microfiction to YeahWrite before being consumed by the editorial darkside. She spent some time working hard as our Submissions Editor before becoming YeahWrite’s Managing Editor in 2016. She was a BlogHer Voice of the Year in 2017 for her work on intersectional feminism, but she suggests you find and follow WOC instead. In real life she’s been at various times an attorney, aerialist, professional knitter, artist, graphic designer (yes, they’re different things), editor, secretary, tailor, and martial artist. It bothers her vaguely that the preceding list isn’t alphabetized, but the Oxford comma makes up for it. She lives in Portlandia with a menagerie which includes at least one other human. She tells lies at textwall and uncomfortable truths at CrossKnit.
