Squills 6/23/13

Welcome to Squills, the official news bulletin of the Young Writers Society! What will you find here? Tons of interesting news about YWS, feature articles about writing, art and the world of humanities, member interviews, shameless plugs and opinionated columns. And where will all of this come from? Not only from the staff but also from you! Yes, as long as your item can be labeled wAith any of the above mentioned articles and it answers to YWS standards, rules and regulations, you can post 'em here. Visit the Reader's Corner for more information and other Squills activities.

Creative Staff

Spoiler

Technical Adviser: Griffinkeeper

Editor-in-Chief: AlfredSymon
Literary Correspondent:
Clubs Correspondent: LemonyIce
Forum Correspondent: Aquestioning
Advertising Manager: dogs

Girl with the Golden Pen:SparkofDoubt

Columnist: TheDayBeforeTomorrow
Community Reporter: ShadowVyper
News Reporter: megsug
Boards Reporter: Animal
Storybook Reporter:

Comic Artist: Cspr
Comics Coordinator:

New Blog Experience!

One of the extra-featurettes of the Young Writers Society is the weblogs page, and we can't just leave it lagging while every other feature's updating! With Nate playing with the programming, few but very advantageous additions and changes were done with the New Blogs Page.

Nate wrote: In the main area, you can view the most recent blogs or sort by popularity. In the sidebar, you have the main blogging tools as well as a list of your most recent blog entries. In addition, the default blog template has been completely changed as well. It now looks a lot more like a literary work page, and doesn't feel nearly as cramped.

June Poetry Workshop

To be hosted by GeeLyria with Sparkofdoubt. To read more, visit this page.

Character Chit-Chat Revolution!

That's right! Maybe you've heard. Maybe you haven't. But the Character Chit-Chat Forum is getting revolutionized.

Wanna help?

We sure want you to! First, check out this awesome article by LouisCypher, then head over to the forum and pick a Chit-Chat you like.

I'm Being Productive, Okay?

I have spent one and a half of a weekend immersed in Khaled Hosseini’s And The Mountains Echoed, and Mitch Albom’s The Time Keeper. I confess that afterwards, my mind was reeling with the tragedy and emotional stress the two books created. I could not have chosen two less ill-suited books to read simultaneously, as I am wont to do. Not being satisfied with that, I have also made my way through most of the fourth book of ASOIAF. Nevertheless, in my literature-devouring eyes, this was time more than well spent, but others around me seem to think differently.

“Do you intend to become the world’s most voracious reader?” my mother wanted to know. “You’re certainly not going to get anywhere else with the amount of studying you’ve been doing.” This is rather typical of my mother, but even my classmates thought that this was not very prudent of me. “Where did you find the time for that?” one of my fellow bookworms marveled. “I spent my weekend with Rutherford, R. K. Narayan and Stalin.” Another remarked, rather unkindly, that it was no wonder I was somewhat lost in Physics class.

All this criticism on my voracious reading habits forced me to brood on what defines something as productive. I personally thought I was spending my time rather gainfully, though there is always an opportunity cost to time. The hours I spent reading those books could have been invested in brushing up on my dwindling knowledge in Physics. (I blame the excessively boring teacher.)

I could also have read a course-related book in Literature, or I could have enjoyed the monsoon weather. I could even have spent time with my beloved canine, a fearsome Rottweiler who is overly fond of climbing on my jeans. And I have a sneaking suspicion that any of these would be deemed more constructive than what I did spend my weekend doing.

And yet, spending my time reading, watching TV, going to parties or simply doing nothing is not entirely counterproductive either. Reading or watching TV enables me to get a more broadened outlook and feeds my overactive imagination. Going to parties would help me develop my nonexistent social skills. Even kicking my feet back and sleeping in till noon is helpful in conserving my energy for important tasks.

All this rambling has brought me to the conclusion that, truly, there is no such thing as wasting time, unless you have divided your time into neat little cubicles that leave no time for the follies of human nature. Time can be spent in countless fruitful ways, depending on whom you ask and what stage of life plagues you at the moment. Being a student, using my time for too many things other than studying is probably not wise, but neither can anyone say that it is wasted time; it is simply being productive in a different way.

And besides, I quite liked those two books.