You guys, I am in love with all of you right now. Not only did you dive right into the summer supergrid, the quality of the feedback folks are giving in the bronze lounge is blowing my mind. You are making this editor the happiest girl on the block.

Summer grid week 1 winners!

Thirty-nine intrepid yeah writers braved the first summer supergrid, including one yeah write virgin! It was a great mix of fiction, non-fiction and gargleblasters. We understand it was a challenge to figure out how to pick your favorites across the genres — it’s like comparing apples to oranges to gooseberries. It’s good to stretch our minds a bit, though, don’t you think? This week we gave you four votes to play with, and here are your faves.

In first place we have Rowan G. at crossknit, who disassembled and reassembled herself from top to bottom in her straight-from-the-heart post, Edits. Go read it – you won’t regret it. (WordPress thinks so too – it was picked up by Freshly Pressed and ought to show up in a Twitter feed near you sometime on Tuesday!) The next two spots both go to gargleblasters. Genna at writeamuck took second place with Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, and Mike at mjshorts took third with Anybody Seen the Kids? Rounding out the top row we have Michelle at hummingbirdinhiding with a bit of longer fiction, also titled Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Congratulations, folks! Pick up your summer series winners’ badges from the sidebar!

Week 2 writing topics

Each week we’ll be focusing on one or two topics that we think are important in our journey to becoming better writers. We’ll preview the topics on Sundays, and the writing topics themselves will be posted on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Consider these topics when creating your summer grid entries. If you’re participating in one of our critique lounges, you’ll want to pay particular attention.

This week we’re taking a long hard look at story: what is it, and what makes a good one? Stories aren’t only for fiction, of course. This week Cindy R will give us some pointers on teasing the best stories out of your ideas. On Tuesday, you’ll learn to recognize what a story is by focusing on what it isn’t. Then we’ll turn the tables in Thursday’s post and learn about building stories with narrative structure, the magic of how you get from once upon a time to and then they lived happily ever after.

Optional prompts

Even though the speakeasy and gargleblaster are closed for the summer, we know sometimes it’s hard to start writing without a little extra push. Since we can’t put coffee through your monitor, we’ll do the next best thing and feature an optional prompt each week that you can use to strike your creative spark.

This week’s optional prompt is: What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

Go ahead and answer that question in a 42-word gargleblaster, incorporate it in your longer fiction, or use it as inspiration for your nonfiction. You can also feel free to ignore it entirely if you’ve already got a great idea!

Let’s get serious

Did you submit a piece to the summer supergrid that didn’t do as well as you expected in the voting? Or maybe it never quite gelled for you, though you liked the idea behind it. Drop into one of our critique lounges for a little extra feedback.

• The bronze lounge is free and open to all. Register for the lounge to gain access, and you can join in the peer-to-peer critique fun.
• The silver lounge is a week-long small group writing workshop, and costs $25. Groups of no more than 4 plus an editor will get together for a more traditional workshopping experience.
• The gold lounge is for those who want to work one-on-one with one of our editors. Suzanne P. and Natalie D. are on tap to help you really dig into your writing, from the nuts and bolts of grammar and punctuation to the broader topics of themes and storylines. For only $50 you won’t find a better place to review your work.

Take that piece you submitted this past week and edit it. Pay attention to what your peers and editors have to say. Then go ahead and submit your revised piece to the next supergrid. Don’t forget to link back to the original piece so you can show off your improvement! We’d love to see a footnote telling us what you learned in the process. (Don’t tell anyone, but our Cerberus, Rowan G, said she’d give you a little more room in your word count for this, since your original and revised posts might run right up to your limit. Just don’t abuse the privilege, ok? Shoot for 50-100 words, tops. If you have more to say than that, just make another post and link to it from your revised post so curious folks can read.)

Remember, if you’re not signed up already you can register for any lounge at any time. Just try to give us a little heads up for the silver lounge so that we can put together our workshop groups.

Below you’ll find the badge for the summer supergrid #171. Copy the code under the badge and paste it into the html or text view of your blog editor. Having trouble? Contact christine@yeahwrite.me for tech support.

<a href="https://yeahwrite.me/summer-series-171/"> <img src="https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/summer171.png"> </a>

Summer schedule

In a nutshell, here’s how the summer will play out. All times are Eastern US.

• Sunday, 12:01 am: Kickoff post with preview of upcoming writing topics, summary of summer grid winners, moonshine grid closes
• Tuesday, 12:01 am: Writing topic post #1, summer grid opens for submissions
• Thursday, 12:01 am: Writing topic post #2, summer grid opens for voting
• Friday, 12:00 noon: Voting closes, moonshine grid opens

Yeah write coffeehouse

The coffeehouse is open for business! Planned as a year-round endeavor, the coffeehouse is yeah write’s casual corner where you can meet up for casual small talk, introductions, and other writing-related conversations. The link is in the menu over there to the left, and we’re open 24-7. Stop by and say hello.

And if you’re not signed up for the yeah write e-mail blast, you might want to change that. It’s the fastest way to get all the news. See that little form over there in the left-hand sidebar? Fill that out and you’ll be among the first to know what’s going on!