Squills 12/13/20 - 12/20/20

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1. FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: EUPHORIA8
2. NANOWRIMO ROUND UP
3. INTERVIEW WITH LUMINESCENCE
4. A WORD AND A NOTE: LINKAGE OF MUSIC AND WRITING
5. A WRITING PERSPECTIVE: NANO FAILURE
6. WORD OF THE WEEK: CHAGRIN
7. SHAMELESS PLUGS
8. SUBSCRIBERS

FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: EUPHORIA8written by LZPianogirl< PM: >

This week, we welcome YWS’s newest featured member, @Euphoria8! Her incredibly positive personality, friendly reviews, and her amazing posts in the Randomosity forum , Euphoria8 was the perfect choice for featured member. Since she joined in early October, Euphoria8 has written a whopping forty-five reviews and has published seven fantastic works. Now, please give your attention to Euphoria8, who I had the pleasure of interviewing!


Euphoria8: I screamed into a pillow. No exaggerations XD I don't know why, but at that moment, I was just so psyched and, ahem, euphoric. XD hehe. And then I think I played a really happy song and danced to it and then finally came back here to see the sweetest messages ever. I was just kinda on a high for that whole day. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH YWS


E: I don't know how FMs are chosen in the first place, but if I had to guess, I'd say you need to be as active as possible and HAVE FUN WITH THE PEOPLE HERE! There are probably other factors too; reviews, published works, involvement in the forums, but I think it all comes down to stalking everyone here conversing with everyone, making some chaos and shaking things up!


E: I know I kinda said this before but THE PEOPLE. EVERYONE'S SO SWEET, FUN, POSITIVE, AWESOME, MOTIVATING- gsjnsjsnj I love everyone so much. I'd also add WFPs! They do wonders in increasing your word count when you're word war-ring with someone and is THE best place to collab on projects. But my favorite is chatting with everyone there...hehe


E: YESS I have sent in the form for Secret Santa but I'm still filling out the one for the YWS Best and Most Awards! IT'S SO HARD TO CHOOSE ANEJEJWMAKMS. Anyone who's reading this, I beg you...go take part in it, it'll be fun!


V: I will gladly take that suggestion, thank you! Last words, eh? Hmmmmmm
OOH SHOUT OUTS!!

A shout-out to my super awesome friends because THEY DESERVE TO BE RECOGNIZED (and it's fun hanging out in pads with them XD): @LadyMysterio @starlitmind @Vil @SilverNight @Liminality @HarryHardy @LordMomo @LittleLee OH MY GOSH AND LITERALLY EVERYONE WHO I'VE TALKED TO AND WHO'VE LEFT BEAUTIFUL MESSAGES ON MY WALL and YES YOU LZ! HEARTS HEARTS <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<33<3<3

Anyone reading this, please have a FABULOUS day because you ARE MOST LIKELY TO BE THE BESTEST PERSON ON EARTH!

Is that enough for last words? XDDD


E: I tend to baffle people with just my first words XD ohoho no no, dear LZ, thank YOU so much for interviewing me! <33 this is like a dream come true haha!! <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

You can go congratulate Euphoria8 in this thread !

NANOWRIMO ROUND UPwritten by IcyFlame< PM: >


Well, that's it folks. The bell has rung, we've put down our pencils, and NaNoWriMo is over for another year.
This year has seen so many people on YWS participating, and even more cheering them on along the way. So with this month behind us, let's look back at the highs, the lows, and the quite frankly completely bizarre experience that was writing 50,000 words in a period of 30 days.

Starting NaNo is all about reaching that elusive word goal. When you're on your first 5,000 words that lofty goal seems unreachable and unattainable but for most of us, as you start to write and chip away day by day, little by little, NaNo becomes less about the 50,000 words and more about something else. Fighting exhaustion, writer's block, your story taking turns you didn't expect and a whole lot of self doubt you begin to realise... meeting the target isn't necessarily the point (although it does feel great if you do).

NaNo is about encouraging you to write, each and every day, forming that habit and overcoming those road blocks that are in the way of so many of us when we're trying to plough through that first draft. It's about getting those words on a page every day, whether it's ten words or a thousand, five hundred or five thousand. It's about overcoming that little niggling voice in your head that tells you a first draft needs to be perfect. It doesn't matter if you only make it to 15,000 or 25,000 or even that elusive 50,000 target, the thing that really matters is that you are doing it at all.

Sometimes the words come as a trickling stream, other times they flood onto the page and there are times that they just won't come at all. That hasn't stopped this wonderful community of writers, many of whom have beaten NaNo this month and some who have even managed to complete drafts of the novel they have been working on. I am complete awe of each and every one of you, and YWS will be here if and when you're ready to share the output of all the hard work over the month.

There have been a lot of winners on the site this year who all deserve a congratulations, but there are also a few special mentions for some of our members:

• @HarryHardy, who despite his exams wrote just under 93K words over three different novels... almost twice the recommended amount for NaNo!
• @Carlito, who was on 35K four days before the end of the month and then wrote a whopping 15K words in three days... we're all in awe!

Here are some words of wisdom from some of our winners. @Magebird learned this about how she works best:





And HarryHardy had this to say about the overall experience:





If you participated in NaNo, whether you wrote 500 words or the full 50,000 give yourself a massive pat on the back. Dedicating that much time to writing can be daunting, and starting a big new project often gives most of us that terrifying blank page syndrome. 50,000 may or may not be the end of your novel, but either way enjoy a well earned break and then get right back to it.

NaNoWriMo may have come to an end, but for many of us that isn't the end of the story. Just insert a comma and keep on writing - you've already proven you can do it!

INTERVIEW WITH LUMINESCENCE

written by alliyah < PM: >

So a couple weeks ago I held a very exciting YWS Scavenger Hunt it had questions which ranged from easy to impossibly difficult, but four users rose to the task of trying to complete it! @Vil and @Euphoria8 were able to gain 77 points together, @HarryHardy searched the forums near and far and earned a total of 153 points, and our champion @luminescence was able to gain a very impressive 165 points (out of 200 possible!) That's awesome! I'm so happy they all took on the challenge, YWS Scavenger Hunts used to be a regular activity ran by @Meshugenah and @Rydia especially during YWS Olympics and Birthday Week, but it's been a little bit since we've had one, so I was happy to host a quick informal hunt. Now you all know that I like to put together extravagant prize-packages when I run contests (Re: bird doodles gallore, and reviews that will one day be written) but for this contest since it was actually hosted in Squills I decided that the winner would be able to be featured in a Squills article! How cool is that! So here's an article featuring the legend luminescence, they are a very neat user who just joined this August so without further ado.... here's our interview!



luminescence: Hours of searching Google. A lot of "Wattpad but better" in my search history because of that. I don't regret it.



l: I learnt a lot when I realized that the things I say and do effect people. An example would be a harsh review with little actual criticism. If I wrote reviews like that, I'd be unintentionally hurting people. I'm really glad I learnt that early.



l: I sort of am. It's been an on and off relationship. It's gone from magic to Midwestern to historical, and right now, it's steampunk-ish.



l: It was surprisingly hard. As an impatient person, I may have almost quit like five times.



l: My wall? I post there too much :/



l: Stick with one thing. If you don't, you'll end up like me with eight different unfinished projects and no writing inspiration.



l: Hmm I can't pick. I know so many cool people.

Alrighty! Thanks for participating and sharing a little bit about your YWS experience lum! I hope you continue to enjoy your time on the site!

A WORD AND A NOTE: LINKAGE OF MUSIC AND WRITING
written by EditorAndPerks < PM: >

Productivity is something I do not like defining as it usually means something I'm not able to stick to: keeping up with some kind of schedule, writing down the good times for me to sit down and type, or simply tracking when I seem to have some free time.

However, there is one common thread for my busier times the last few weeks between tests and assignments and necessary duties. Music. To give both myself a clean slate and to give my parents their own space, I've been about non-spot listening to some note or melody every weekday since October.

Now, in terms of what I'm listening to, I must admit to a high majority of it being Korean Pop songs, but that actually ties into my next point. From most of what I've read, listening to music with words can unintentionally influence what someone would be writing at that exact time, but since I don't speak Korean at all, I figured maybe things would balance out.

At least one thing is for sure, I can say is that there's definitely a magical feeling one can get when finding the perfect atmosphere song to play in the background, on loop for at least thirty minutes, for someone to slowly type along to. Or, in finding that one song that speaks completely about what feelings one wanted to be conveyed fully in this one scene.

I love music. I love music so much that I basically try to listen to as much music as possible as often as I can. I've dug myself holes and fallen into craters by the way I obsess over certain artists throughout the years for months at a time and then I can't bring myself to listen to at least a year later because I have burnt all of my brain cells in order to memorize every lyric, every movement.

And I also love writing, although I seem to try anything to keep myself from having the time to write anything of importance. I definitely need to work on that. After, of course, finishing another possible playlist to play when I can write after my finals week. Maybe.

Anyways, as always, have fun writing and playing music!

A WRITING PERSPECTIVE: NANO FAILURE

written by alliyah < PM: >

So you decided to try out NaNoWriMo, write a gazillion words in a month, and gain all the fame, glory, and writing progress that you've ever wanted? And then things went ... not exactly according to plan?

Well friends, I've been there! I set out to do "NaNo" this November, and by "NaNo" I actually mean the much more mild version of only writing 5,000 words rather than 50,000 because I was just going to write poetry instead. And I've gotta say, I kind of failed! (renewed respect for all your NaNo writers out there!) I figure I'm probably in a similar boat as a few other users on the site, so maybe this is a good opportunity to reflect and move forward?

So first, what exactly happened? I set out to write 30 poems towards my chapbook of around 5,000 words. I had SO MUCH enthusiasm the first week, and even made my own little writer corner thread (with an artsy graphic). But unfortunately by day 10 I knew I was falling far behind, and stopped updating my daily count just focusing on that end goal hoping the numbers would magically add up themselves. Well I ended up with around 27 poems and poetry-snippets if you count very generously, and around 2,000 words. So I got to about 2/5ths of my goal (which was already pretty meager to begin with)...

Now if you need to lament about NaNo losses for a bit, I'm here for you, and can send a sponge-bob gif of encouragement your-way, but I think we can also learn something valuable from this so after taking stock of our failures, let's reflect, what did we learn? Where did we grow? What did we produce that is actually worthy of note and praise?

I thought about it a bit and here's what I can take away from the experience, maybe this'll help some of you, maybe you'll have a different set of lessons, I think the main idea I want to encourage is do take that time of reflection, see if you learned something! And if you're willing, I'd love if you shared your learning insights with me too over at my authors corner.

Okay so this is what I learned!

Break your goal up into manageable chunks if it is too overwhelming
So the "point" of NaNo is to reach 50,000 words (or in my case a measily 5,000 words) but even that can be ... a little intimidating! I think thathe people who were updating their walls with checkins on how close they were getting and who had put together daily word goals rather than just one big monthly goal were on to something.... When I started out, it was a wee-bit of a pain to figure out my daily word count and see each day if I was on track rather than just stare at that final goal, but honestly once I got out of the habit of doing that it went down-hill quick once the overall-goal seemed unmanageable. If I had been doing a daily word-count I may have even realized that I was more likely t get 2500 than 5000 words, so could have also just revised my goal to that which would have also felt more satisfying too.

Keep in mind the actual goal of NaNo
I'm not actually a novelist so I may be wrong here, but I think the actual "point" of NaNo is probably less about reaching 50,000 words which at the end of the day is a sort of arbitrary number and more about challenging yourself, practicing discipline, and making progress on your writing project. The benefit to having such a high word-count is you have to turn the self-editor off a bit which can also be freeing and productive for many writers, but at the end of the day NaNo is more about progress than a number right? I think keeping this in mind gives me some areas of NaNo to be proud of, hey I did not get close to my word-count, but I did make progress, I did challenge myself, and I did attempt to practice some daily writing discipline! Focusing on a goal outside of numbers might be a helpful change of perspective for you too, it's something I plan on keeping in mind if I try this again.

Everyone works differently
I've never attempted NaNo before or really any sort of real word-count geared challenge, because I've not really thought of that as a poetry thing and the numbers always seemed too monstrous to attempt. I'm honestly happy I gave myself permission to set a goal that was so low! (YAY Covid-life-lessons, setting "low"-goals are permissable, and sometimes needed!!) Another thing that I think I'm going to take away from NaNo is that everyone works differently. I've gone back and forth with whether writing in a pad / not pad, writing with a time limit / no limit, and writing with a goal / theme / or just endlessly is more productive, and honesty I'm still finding this out for myself, it kinda depends on the season! But I think it's important just because some people really excel with writing towards word-count goals... that doesn't have to be your writing goal if that makes sense? If I try this again next year I'm going to keep experimenting with different writing-productivity methods to see what works for me!

And those are just some of the highlights, I'd love to hear what your experience was like too! Hopefully you also had some opportunities to reflect and feel like you gained something. Congratulations to all of you who won NaNoWriMo or completed your goals, and congrats to everyone who learned something new during November! Keep on writing!

WORD OF THE WEEK: CHAGRIN
written by EternalRain < PM: >

Pronunciation: shuh-grin

Part of Speech: noun, verb

Definition: n. distress or embarrassment at having failed or been humiliated.

v. feel distressed or humiliated.

Synonyms: humiliation, annoyance, exasperation, irritation; annoyed, irritated, cross

Origin: mid 17th century; from French chagrin (“rough skin”)

Used in a Sentence: Sally stayed up all night to study for her math test, but, much to her chagrin, it came back with a fat red “F” marked at the top of the paper.

SHAMELESS PLUGS

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