for writers who blog and bloggers who write
Forget the timer
My son is tasked with reading for twenty minutes per day as part of his Language Arts homework. He complains about it nightly, asking if he’s done yet ever minute or so beginning with the ninth minute. We set a timer and when he complains, I tell him to just listen for the timer. My hope is that, one day, he’ll be so immersed he’ll ignore the timer and just keep going. Even better, one day he won’t even want the timer.
It’s not that he doesn’t like to read, you see. He just doesn’t want to be forced to do it. He’s eight and eight year olds are like that. What he doesn’t understand is that reading every single day for twenty minutes builds a discipline inside him, helps to foster a curiosity about interests he may not have otherwise discovered, and opens a door to new worlds, ideas, facts, and, well, everything.
Reading is the key to everything.
To succeed here at yeah write (and everywhere else), you must read. Read the grid to learn your competition. Read other blogs to see what else is happening. Read magazines, online articles, newspapers and books. Read anything and everything. Explore the world through words so that you can expose others to your world through your words.
Read about the craft. Follow websites and newsletters that can help you write better and expose you to excellent writing tips like this post from The Write Life.
You can be the best writer on the planet but if you don’t read… wait, no. Scratch that. You cannot be the best writer on the planet if you don’t read.
Who’s on Fourth?
Each month we like to feature an interview with a yeah writer by a yeah writer in our series who’s on fourth. This month we’re chatting with Nancy from Chef’s Last Diet. The interview goes live at noon eastern on Monday. Make sure you check it out!
New feature! Nonfiction theme of the month: irony
We’ll be exploring different themes every month to help you stretch your writing wings. This month’s completely optional theme is irony, and your assignment – should you choose to accept it – is to take at a photograph and tell us what’s really going on. For more on irony, check out Rowan’s article in our writing help section.
This week’s ultimate question:
Where can I get one of those?
This optional prompt, which also serves as the ultimate question for the microstory challenge opening Wednesday, is here to serve as your inspiration for your nonfiction submission. Already have your own story thought up? No problem! The prompt is only there if you need it.
Want more info?
Is this your first time here? Check out Sunday’s post which kicked off the week here at yeah write. If you don’t think you can remember to check back every Sunday, you can sign up for our email blasts directly to your inbox. Our email subscribers can also join us in the yeah write coffeehouse at its new home on Facebook.
If you’ve never taken the time to read them, please take a moment to familiarize yourself with our submission guidelines. The rules are a little different for each of our challenges and we’d hate to have to send back great writing on a technicality.
Did you happen to end up here because you suddenly saw yeah write in your stats? Sometimes members of our community spot excellent writing and they send those posts on over to us. We hope you don’t mind. Take a look around and get to know our community. We’re sure you’ll be happy here.
Have questions you can’t find the answer to by poking around the site? Email us or find us on Facebook and Twitter and we’ll happily help you out.
Submit to the yeah write #237 nonfiction challenge
The yeah write #237 weekly writing challenge is now open for nonfiction: personal essays, creative opinion, mostly true stories based on actual events. You can check out the submission guidelines and join us with your essay using the link below.
