for writers who blog and bloggers who write
On Procrastination
We are AAA members. For those of you unfamiliar, this is an organization that provides roadside assistance if your car breaks down or you run out of gas or you get a flat tire. Last time I remember paying my membership dues, someone from the organization called me because we had let it lapse. At that time, I set us up for auto-renewal since I can’t ever remember to do things, even when bills appear.
Today I was cleaning up my email and I happened upon two emails from AAA inviting me to renew my lapsed membership. I totally forgot that I’d set up the auto-renew, and for the past many months, I’ve been ignoring the bill sitting in my bill folder that I thought was a renewal. I don’t know when exactly I was going to feel like shelling out an extra $100+ dollars, but I kept figuring it would be next month. I finally opened the envelope today to find that a) it was auto-renewed already and b) I’d been ignoring that envelope since JANUARY.
What’s my point? How is this related to writing? Well, the point is that procrastination doesn’t make anything easier. It actually tends to make things harder or, at the very least, extra stressful. So if you’ve been putting off work on a WIP, or avoiding getting an editor because you just don’t want to know what sort of mess you’re dealing with. Guess what? If you wait, the mess will still be there. Just take care of it. Also, renew your AAA. It’s a good program.
Yeah write super challenge #2
The third and final round of super challenge #2 is currently underway! Our participants are finishing up their amazing pieces as we speak as we anxiously await their submissions. Wish them good luck in the comments! They deserve it!
Did you miss out on registration? Don’t fret! Just sign up for our email blast so you don’t miss out on any announcements regarding future super challenges.
The basics
Yeah write gives you two competitive challenge grids — nonfiction and fiction|poetry — both of which are unmoderated. Everyone gets to the voting round on Thursday. (Remember, your post must be dated appropriately, not be offensive to our audience, and cannot be over word count.) Got a question? E-mail us, tweet us, ping us on Facebook, or visit our online community, the yeah write coffeehouse. You can learn more about yeah write in our FAQ. Please make sure you are familiar with our submission guidelines before you enter. We don’t have a lot of rules, but we do enforce them across the board. We’d hate to see anyone get disqualified by a technicality.
Bring us your personal essays and creative nonfiction!
The nonfiction challenge grid opens on Monday at midnight EST. This is the best place on the ‘net to showcase your best writing. Make us laugh, make us cry, make us think, and above all: make us care.
Nonfiction know-how: boundaries
It’s that time again. Yeah, you guessed it: the season of family holidays. When the biggest thing on your mind is how your family is driving you absolutely freakin’ nuts and you can’t think of anything else to blog about, but you swore that with NaBloPoMo kicking off you’d write at least something every day. Don’t worry. Rowan is here to help you through it.
Is fiction more your thing?
The fiction|poetry grid opens on Tuesday. Grab a mic and join our monthly poetry slam or check out our weekly prompt up!
Prompt up!
Prompt up is our optional weekly writing prompt for the fiction|poetry challenge! Here’s how it works: we choose a sentence prompt from last week’s winning nonfiction post and announce it in the kickoff. It’s your job to use that prompt as the first sentence in your poem or story and then run with it. The prompt is just a springboard, though: feel free to keep it as your first sentence, move it, change it, or float down it to other territories.
This week, Cindy came up for air after a tumultuous past few months in her post, 300 Words About Grief. The prompt up taken from her essay is: The opposite bank seems too distant, a shore you can never hope to reach.
November poetry slam: the echo
The Echo myth might be one of Rowan’s least favorite stories of Greek mythology, but it lends its name to one of her new favorite poetry forms. Unlike Echo, you still get to control your words in this month’s poetry slam. Well, most of them anyway. An echo poem is a poem that doesn’t have terminal rhymes or scansion (thank her later) but it has a strict internal rhyme scheme. Learn more from Rowan here.
Winners’ round-up
In case you missed them, you can find last week’s yeah write staff picks and crowd favorites all laid out for you on Friday’s winners’ post. Leave the winners some love in the comments. They will love you right back, we guarantee it.
Weekend writing showcase
The weekend’s not over: the moonshine grid is still open. Have something to add? Old posts and new are welcome. No moderation, no voting. It’s a laid-back relaxed kind of place. Just leave your commercial or sponsored posts at home. Drop by, share your work, and while you’re there, visit your fellow yeah writers.