Squills 6/27/13

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: Ignorance
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:
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.

AriaAdams wrote:People and other creatures of YWS, I'm happy to present you a new Storybook workshop, held by myself and the fabulous Rydia !
It shall be held on Tuesday, June 25th, from 6pm GMT, and if you're new to the site, and/or new to the world of SBing, I'm more than glad to call you to attend :3

~What will it be about, you wonder?
The workshop will cover the basics of Storybooking, and focus on character creation/first posts. That said, it will explain the terms, as well as answer all the possible questions, and the participants will, at the end of it, know how to create an original and fitting character, and/or what and how to include in the very first post in the Storybook.

Interested in learning how to do a Storybook? Are you curious to know how to make a unique character? Look no further! Join Into The Wilderness today, but hurry fast! Spots are filling up and space is limited.



Nate is thinking of doing some more badges for YWS. Remember those new "Trophies" sections in our profiles? He's is looking for achievements to fill those up with. But don't expect them immediately; they're a lot of work:

Nate wrote:Regarding the badges, please be aware that it's a lot of work for some of them. It's going to take me a minimum of 40 hours to set the whole system up. So, don't expect it soon!

How can you help? Well, those badges won't come out of nowhere, and a lot of them may be needed. YWSers are needed to design and create badges in all the different categories. See this thread for more information on designing badges.

And, some potential story booker badges, to feast your eyes on:

Nate wrote:- Rookie Storybooker: Post your first character.
- Casual Storybooker: Write 50 posts in any Plot Thread. (Unlocks Thread creation in Freel Storybook Forum)
- Experienced Storybooker: Write 100 posts in any Plot Thread. (Unlocks Thread Creation in Casual Storybook Forum)
- Veteran Storybooker: Write 200 posts in any Plot Thread. (Unlocks Thread Creation in Advanced Storybook Forum)
- Storybook Savant: Write 1000 posts in any Plot Thread.
- Participate in a Storybook whose Plot Thread totalled more than 50 posts.
- Epic Storybook: Participate in a Storybook whose Plot Thread totalled more than 100 posts.
- Legendary Storybook: Participate in a Storybook whose Plot Thread Totalled more than 200 posts.
- Lead your first Storybook.
- Create an Advanced Storybook.
- Create 5 Storybooks.
- Create 10 Storybooks.

See here (scroll down).

Spoiler

When it comes to entertainment, tear-jerkers is not a category that I frequent much, meaning not at all. It consists mainly of star-crossed lovers and could-have-been romances that I find excessively whimsical and impractical, not to mention not at all as depressing as they seem. However, there is one author who has finally gotten the better of my stoic, uncaring self.

Khaled Hosseini, in my opinion, is highly skilled in the art of Opening the Human Floodgates. If you can find a person who has read any one of his books without losing their composure even once, I would like to congratulate them on having the emotional range of a rock. I have read two of his three books, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, and I intend to order his third book sometime today.

What is so extraordinary about his books, you may ask? Well, Hosseini is quite wonderful at developing his characters, which he does unobtrusively and almost cautiously so. He also has a fondness for getting rid of the characters I liked the most, a quality I both love and hate him for.

But the glaringly obvious tragedy in Hosseini’s work is that it is so painfully nonfiction. None of his works are based on true stories, yet his readers know that his books could be true stories of thousands of civilians living in Afghanistan, give or take a few specifics. And personally, I feel that this makes his books all the more heart-rending.

Hosseini builds up the angst in a particular character’s life until at the climax, the reader would have to be made of stone to not be moved in some way. His books are as exquisitely put together as a masterful painting or an exquisite, five-star dish. But as neither of those objects has reduced me to a piteous state of tears, I believe that some paper, ink and a handful of words are superior to both.

Spoiler

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.

Storybooks Reboot!

Nate did some tweaking with the Storybooks and hey, there are some major changes! Here they are:

New SB feature: The Sokka Sequential

Spoiler

Sidebar Area
The sidebar area of SB is now almost completely customizable. SB managers can add rules there, a summary of the storybook, and you can also see the list of participants if the storybook is closed.

Storybook Managers
The owner of the SB can now optionally appoint other people to help him with running the storybook.


Character Pages
Participants of the SB can add pages for their characters, which are linked to via the sidebar. If the SB is open, anyone can potentially add a storybook page.


Open vs. closed
If you make your SB closed, it really is closed: only people approved by a SB manager can post in it (of course, this doesn't apply to moderators!).

When your SB is closed, you can choose to allow people to request to join. When someone requests to join, you'll see their name pop up in the participants section of the SB with the words "approve" and "deny" next to them.

All SB start with a default of open. To save time, if you switch from open to closed, anyone who has previously posted is automatically added as an approved poster. Of course, you can remove people if you like.


To read more, click here.

BlackNether In The Spotlight

Now here's an interview with BlackNether12, our bi-weekly Featured Member!

1. How does it feel to be featured member?

Well, it's exhilarating. Really, being featured member isn't a special thing, I don't get a badge, I don't get a trophy, I don't get anything special . . . but YWS is a tight-knit community, people know each other. I'm proud that I was able to do enough on here to stand out. For me, coming second place has always really annoyed me. I'm competitive. I want to be the winner. Being the winner feels pretty good: Because that's what it is to me, even if I'm the only one who recognizes it as such.

2. What did you do to earn your spot in the limelight?

Well, I'm going to say three things got me featured. A: Sympathy. B: An inability to stop doing small reviews. C: And storybooks. But really it's my reviews that are the only things very special. I'm proud of them. I mean, if you write a review, then zoom out, and looking up and down, notice how much bigger it is than everybody else's (not being conceited here, mind you) . . . Point being, that review stands out. Plus, I do a lot of reviews . . . numbers are impressive sometimes.

3. What help could being featured give to you?

Well, really, being featured member doesn't do me any good. I don't get anything from it . . . other than a bit of temporary recognition. I could think up a few small things I could get from it, but you'd pass over them on a list of things I could get without being featured. Being featured member really just gives me satisfaction.

4. How do you think other members could be featured?

Well, at the moment, I think we have a lot of space for FM's coming from the SB area. Maybe a reviver of some of the forums would get noticed, but it's not too likely. Of course, you can always become FM by just A: Helping people out a whole, whole lot and being nice, or B: Being generally very active. Or you could go and try to use sympathy.


A Message From Cspr

Hello, everyone!

I’m back from my long excursion. I visited the Bedridden Desert, sailed the Seas of Terrible Pain, visited the island known as Confused Doctors (it’s in the Bermuda Triangle), and eventually now here I am on Mount Sort-of-Remission. It’s shorter than the Mount of Remission, but that was taller and I have had to deal with muscular atrophy, aka the bites of ghost lions. Ghost lions are a terrible scourge.

What am I here to do? It’s the sixth month of the year 2013! This means I must tell you my favorite things done by artists this year insofar. It’s a bit of a short list because of my wacky adventures, but it’s not meant to be the finalized list. Nope, nope. The finalized list? You send me in your votes! Tell me your favorite writers, favorite musicians, favorite artists, etc. Anything vaguely related to art will do. Up to three names per individual category (I know, I’m not following the rules, don’t judge me) and they all must have produced something this year. Though that doesn’t have to be the reason you fell in love with them, you have to have read/looked/listened to something this year by them to note them. So if you fell in love with Black Vampire by Tobias Murphy (obvious made up name is obvious) but it was published in 2012, you need to have read his Finch Kisses this year to vote in his name. Got it? Good. On June third, I’ll publish the results.

Now for my favorites. You can skip them, but you might miss out, just FYI.

Favorite Writer(s):

Rachel Hartman for Seraphina.

One of the best fantasy novels I have read involving dragons, right up there with The Fire Within, The Hero and the Crown, and The Painted Boy. Lovely characters, lovely world. Quite unforgettable and the first book to truly catch my attention after my travels.

Favorite Musician(s):

Frightened Rabbit for their album Pedestrian Verse. (Especially the songs Backyard Skulls; Late March, Death March; and The Oil Slick.)

The National for their album Trouble Will Find Me. (Especially the songs Demons, Don’t Swallow the Cap, Heavenfaced, Slipped, and Pink Rabbits.)

Daughter for the album If You Leave. (Especially songs Winter and Smother, though Smother was released in 2012 and doesn’t quite count.)

Favorite Artist(s):

Laura Sava (*anotherwanderer) for art like illustrations for Witch Fall, illustrations for Falwyn, and Lilith.

*Kanamm of Belgium for Apollo.

Nikki M. (=naikki) of the USA for .echoes deprive me enough.

Katarzyna Dembrowska (*Kat-D) for Sin (photograph).

~loccus of Canada for Fragments.

Cristina Otero (*Senju-HiMe) of Spain for warrior.

*TamberElla of the USA for The Toymaster.

Seth Fitts (*SethFitts) of the USA for Canine Family.

Lyly Victoria (~LylyVictoria) of Germany for explosion (photograph).

Karolina Szczesna (‘anachsunamon) of Poland for Illumination.

Brad Wilde (~bradwilde) of the USA for Fever.