Check your fluid levels

Can you believe it? We are halfway through our summer series, and I’m wondering: are you finding your glass half-empty or half-full? That is, how’s it going for you? The intent of the summer series was to shake things up a little, get those creative juices flowing down different tracks. From the conversations I’ve seen over in the lounges and the coffeehouse, it looks like it’s working. But we want to hear from you. What do you think? Leave us some love (sweet or tough) in the comments.

Rev your engines

Some of you may remember a time, long ago, before InLinkz, when voting at yeah write was handled by spreadsheet. This spreadsheet, to be exact. The editors would tally the votes by hand and report out. The purpose was not to give the editors something fun and exciting to do, but to really encourage folks to think about the pieces they were reading so they could be sure they were voting for the best of the best.

While we no longer vote by spreadsheet, the editors do consider the questions posed there when adding links to the invitational grids or awarding jury prizes and editors’ picks. For the next few weeks, we encourage you to try the spreadsheet out. No, we’re not going to check your work, but if you want to know what the editors consider the essential elements of a winning yeah write piece, this is a great place to start.

Waving the checkered flag: summer grid week 3 winners!

For the second week in a row we had thirty-three submissions at the summer supergrid! This includes two brand-spanking new grid virgins, and three brave souls who workshopped their pieces over in the bronze lounge. We had four votes to spread around, and here are your winners:

In first place, we have Suzanne P at Apoplectic Apostrophes with her lovely, haunting 42-word poem, Troubled. She is followed closely by the rest of the top row: Cyn K at That Cynking Feeling with her essay, There is No Nobel Prize for Motherhood; Melanie at My Own Champion with her short story, Redefining Dominion; and Thom at tnkerr with his short story, Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Congratulations, everybody! Your hard work is really showing. Pick up your summer series crowd favorite badges from the sidebar.

Need help figuring out how to vote across genres? Give Arden R’s thoughtful advice a read.

Week 4 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 Suzanne P is tackling one of the basics: What’s in a Sentence? She will talk about the key elements that make up a sentence, and things you can do to ensure all your sentences kick ass. Tune in Tuesday for more!

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: Why don’t we do it in the road?

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! Remember: be creative, think out of the box, and deliver the unexpected. Did I just say the same thing three times three different ways? I must really mean it. The best pieces are the ones that push the boundaries. Don’t forget: the usual grid rules apply.

• Non-fiction & traditional blog posts: up to 500 words (okay, we’ll give you an extra 100 if you really need it)
• Fiction (a la the speakeasy): up to 750 words
• Gargleblaster: exactly 42 words

This joint is jumping

Our lounges are hot, hot, hot this summer, and we want you to come and play! Whether you’re looking for general peer-to-peer critiques, small group workshops, or one-on-one editing help, we’ve got the lounge for you.

• 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.

All silver and gold lounge entries will automatically be added to the end-of-summer invitational grid (regardless of word count). And because you’ve all been playing so nicely together, the editors will add a few of their favorite bronze lounge pieces as well.

In the meantime, 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 #173. 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-173/"> <img src="https://yeahwrite.me/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/summer173.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, 6:00 pm: 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!

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