The Young Writers Blog

The Only Writing Blog For Young Writers And Everyone Else

Entries for December, 2007

A Look Back At 2007: YWS Blog

Over the next few days, I plan on making a series of posts looking back at YWS over the past year.  The YWS Blog has been an off & on venture that first began in 2006, but withered away.  We began it again in April of 2007 with 12 different authors.  Over time, those authors [...]

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Happy New Years!

It’s the New Year, so what do you plan on doing with it?  Any resolutions?

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Literary Honesty & Hannah Montana

Honesty has always been a tricky thing; some people have it, others don’t.  In fact, everyone lies all the time.  Most of the time it’s a white lie, such as saying your day is going fine when it really isn’t, but sometimes it’s a big lie.
Not long ago, the group behind Hannah Montana sponsored an [...]

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Why No Fiction Books About Working?

The Financial Times had a good article today about the lack of business fiction that got me wondering.  After all, the last novel I read about the workplace was “Syrup” by Max Barry, and that was years ago.  Since then, I’ve read about Danes invading England, comic book writers in 1940s New York, cowboys [...]

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Latin Phrase of December 29

Caveat Scriptor: “Writer Beware”

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How Has The Young Writers Society Helped You (if at all)?

I’m thinking of putting together a testimonials page for YWS, so any comments here will help me in putting it together.  But caveat scriptor!  If you post a comment, you may just find it out on such a page!
In any case, has the Young Writers Society helped you with your writing?  And if so, how?  [...]

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The Young Writers Journal, Day 10

Wow, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been putting the entire Journal together for ten days now.  Nearly everyone has been contacted save for a couple, and I have already received five publishing agreements back.
So today I thought I would concentrate common mistakes people have made in submitting their work.

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Break….or not!

How is everyone’s winter break (…those of you that have one) going?  When do you have to go back to classes?  How long have you been off?  Are you jealous of others or should we be jealous of your break?

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Show Your Support For One Of Our Sister Sites

 You know what would be funny?  To leave tons of comments to a default test comment over at a new blog put up by our sister site, Inspired Writers.
So go here and leave a comment! It’ll be HI-larious!
http://inspiredwriters.wordpress.com/

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Amazon Editors’ Top 10 Books Of 2007

There’s a problem I have with the New York Times Top 10 Book List of 2007: I haven’t heard of any of those books.  Sure, I bet they’re great and wonderful and all, and I’ll also probably pick up a few, but what are they?   Actually, I have heard about “Imperial Life In The Emerald [...]

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The NY Times Top 10 Books Of 2007

 
So what made the New York Times Top 10 Book list of 2007? In no particular order, they are:
Fiction

Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas
Our Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
The Savage Detectives by Robert Balano
Then We Come To The End by Joshua Ferris
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

Non-Fiction

Imperial Life In The Emerald City by Rajiv [...]

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Unusual Titles

 Ever come across a book title that you wondered why the author chose it as a title? Perhaps they want to catch the attention of the reader or upon further reading, you may find that the title has more meaning. On Howstuffworks, there is a list of 17 unusual titles including Fancy Coffins to Make [...]

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Happy Holidays From The Young Writers Society!


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The Young Writers Journal, Day 5

Today marks the fifth day of my working on the Journal, but unfortunately I’m not too much further than I was on Friday.  So far, everyone who submitted a poem has been contacted, and I’ve already received a few publishing agreements back.  But I’ve only made a little headway on those who are having their [...]

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It’s The Holiday Season

Happy Holidays & Merry Christmas!  Everyone does something different for the Holidays, so I’m interested, what Holiday do you celebrate and how do you celebrate it?

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The Young Writers Journal, Day 3

Today marked the third day of my work on the Young Writers Journal, and what a busy day overall it was!  I decided to go running this morning, and did some Christmas shopping later on.  In between and afterward, I began editing some of the work and started sending out publishing agreements to people.  My [...]

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The Young Writers Journal, Day 2

 I am now thoroughly engaged in getting the Young Writers Journal done and so I’ve decided to keep a journal of sorts on its progress.
Firstly, I must once again commend Brad (Incandescence) for his hard work and dedication in reviewing all the submissions, and we did receive a lot of submissions.  Thanks to him, I [...]

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Illterate, maybe, but expecting?

 
Just to add to the funny theme we’ve got going this week….

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Quote of the Week #15

“Time is the best teacher, but unfortunately it kills all of it’s students.”
-Robin Williams

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Writer’s Block Antidote #17

I am a master at this.  Will you challenge my ways?
 It’s the holiday season, and you still have a lot of shopping to do, so you’re skipping work. Your boss, who won’t accept, “I’m not feeling well,” as an excuse, requires a more outlandish reason. Write an excuse that begins, “You’re not going to believe [...]

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Did You know? #2

Flying from London to New York by Concord, due to the time zones crossed, you can arrive 2 hours before you leave.
 This will be me this summer :) 

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Lazy Kid Gets An A - You Can Too!

Check out this article called “The Lazy Man’s Definitive Guide to Writing an “A” Paper” (rated PG13 for a small bit of language).  Personally, I love to read…I really do.  But, there are definitely those books I would prefer be locked in a closet never to rear their ugly heads with a professional backer behind them [...]

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How to Make Editors Hate You

….before they even know you!  There is a great article on the Writer’s Resource Guide about 10 things not to do when sendin a query letters.  Your query letter is, besides the rare (if even) occasion you have written something so life changing that they will notice it before you die and take it no matter [...]

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S Wrtng Dd?

Just in case you thought proclamations over the death of writing were restricted to countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and any other industrialized nation comes “The Death of the Art of Writing” from the East African Standard.  Excerpt:

The pen has been replaced with a mouse and keypad. We are more interested [...]

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Plagairism on YWS

I would say that a plagiarized story or poem on YWS comes to our attention about once a month.  Ninety percent of the time, it’s one of the moderators that catch it.  Another nine percent of the time, one of the members catches it.  Only one percent of the time (in this case, only two [...]

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College Essay Writing Tips

You know that college essay prompt, “Describe the most inspirational moment of your life,” or some derivation thereof that’s just screaming out for a terribly cliche answer?  The only problem is that even though the question itself is cliche, the folks at admissions hate cliche answers.   They’re looking for something personal, something unique about you, [...]

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When Writing Becomes A Felony

Have you ever written on your desk at school? I know I did. Back in third grade I used to draw pictures of houses and puppy dogs on my desk. Little did I know that I was a hardened criminal for in New York City, one thirteen year old girl has been [...]

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