Young Writers Society

Welcome to Squills, the official news bulletin of the Young Writers Society!

What will you find here? Tons of interesting news about YWS, including but not limited to: articles about writing, art, and the world of humanities; interviews with YWS members; shameless plugs; link round-ups; and opinionated columns.

And where will all of this come from? Take a look at our fantastic creative staff!





Of course, our content can’t come only from our staff. We also depend on you to help keep Squills successful. You’re all a part of a writing community, after all. If you’re interested in submitting to Squills, pop on over to the Reader’s Corner to find out how you can get involved by contributing an article or participating in other Squills activities. You can also subscribe to the Squills Fan Club , or PM SquillsBot to receive a notification each time a new issue is published!

Well, that’s all I have for now. So, what are you waiting for? Enjoy!

1. Letter From The Editor
2. Two Cents
3. Quibbles
4. New Arrivals
5. Resources Relay – 5/31
6. This Week’s Round Up – 5/31
7. Shameless Plugs
8. Subscribers

LETTER FROM THE EDITORwritten by BlueAfrica < PM: >

Hey, Squillsamigos!

I’m pleased to announce that we have two new additions to our staff. Please join me in welcoming @Lavvie as our new Quibbles columnist and @Pretzelsing as our new Resources reporter!

What does this mean? Awesome things, friends! The renewal of two columns that have been in hibernation for a long time and bigger Squills issues for all of you. We have 107 subscribers at the moment, so I’m ecstatic that we have this chance to produce more articles.

Of course, this newsletter would be nothing if not for you, our readers. Thank you for all your support!

TWO CENTS: CREATING A COMPILATION OF POEMSwritten by Aley < PM: >

Many of you may be aware that I like to host poetry things. Doing that over the years has meant that I collect a lot of poems, and being that I want to eventually put them together into a book, I have been asking around and researching how to make a compilation of poetry out of your work. I figured as a nice "coming back" article, I'd provide you guys some of the details that I've learned.

First thing first, write a lot of poetry. People who make compilations have a lot of poems, like one or two per day at least. They usually put aside time each day to write poems and edit poems. That means that for about half an hour every day, they write and edit their work. Sometimes they write crappy poems, or rather, most of the time they write crappy poems. Sometimes they write good poems. Most of the time they make good poems out of crappy poems or mediocre poems. Editing is a big deal in poetry as the difference between "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" and "Don't Die Today" is very slight. Same meaning, very different villanelle, huge difference in the feeling.

That's why I say the number one thing you have to do is create a collection of your poems that you like. This means you have to go through the work you've done recently and a while ago and create some way to manage what you like, what you don't like, and what you want to improve. For me, this is having a folder where I stick all my new poems. I toss ones I don't want to edit in "rewrite" and ones I want to edit in "rework," while I put the ones I've worked with to a point of happiness in "Good"--which are all folders. So I have a folder system to organize my poems. You might be writing them on scrap papers, in journals, on YWS, or even in Writer Feed Pads. Creating a system that works with how you write is essential so that when you're done with the poems, you can know which are which quickly and easily.

A book of poems ranges between 20-150 pages. Depending on the type face, formatting, and style you want to use for your poems, this could be anywhere from 10-150 poems. Most are pocketbook sized, so a poem that goes an average of a word document page might end up being two pages. Keep this in mind when you're considering what poems to use. Other things you'll have to consider might be whether you want a book to have just one poem per page, or if you want only front of pages to have poems, or if you want sections or chapters. This gets into the nitty-gritty of making a poetry compilation.

Actually picking poems for the compilation usually comes down to likes and dislikes, but after that, you have to market it somehow and that requires putting together themes. Chances are pretty high that your poems relate to one another whether it's chronologically, mood, season, setting, feeling, rhythm, tone, tune, or tantrums, there is a connection because you wrote all of them. As the author, it is your right to decide what poems belong next to one another. This is a big job because you have to gauge what poems are going to lead into one another the best when reading straight through the book.

The best way to do this is to look at poems and read them back to back. See which ones have similar themes, use similar words, or, jump to completely new themes to take the reader away from something sad, or get back into serious stuff from something happy. As your title is your introduction, tailor titles in the book to reflect the change between the last poem and the new poem in order to establish a clear development between poems.

Don't be afraid to throw in short stories and essays too! Most of the time compilations with just poems won't sell whereas if they had essays or short stories, they might! Marketing to non-poetry readers is major for the poetry community because usually the only people who read poems are poets. This also means go out there and support your poets by buying a lot of compilations. This will help you develop an understanding of what they're looking for when they do the same.

Enough of the advertisements, let's go back to talking about the details. When you're working on a compilation and you're stuck on a poem that will easily follow the last poem, you can make a separate section in order to change themes without jarring the reader. Introducing the new section can be as easy as labeling it "Nature" on its own page, like a new chapter, or creating a fancy banner and stuff around a name for a new title poem.

Take your time reading through the compilation you're creating and make sure you check for typos, spelling errors, wrong words, and things like that. After you're done, read it backwards, go line by line like a palindrome and read it from the last word to the first word on every page, cover to cover. This will tell you if you're really missing anything.

Here comes the fun part, pass it off! See what other people say when you send them the compilation. Ask them to review it for you as a collection. If one poem doesn't fit here or there, edit it and move things around. When you've sent it off to a few people and you're comfortable with it, you're out of my hands and completely on your own.

Most people suggest Amazon.

Good luck! I hope to see you out there.

QUIBBLES
Nestling with Noncount Nouns
written by Lavvie < PM: >

Nouns, most simply, are words that are used to identify people, places, or things. They can be singular or plural. For example:

Singular: curtain, dog, city, oak, splinter
Plural: curtains, dogs, cities, oaks, splinters

Yet, nouns can also be separated into two other categories: count nouns and noncount nouns. Awareness of count and noncount nouns is crucial in today's society, which is starting to recycle grammar rules more and more. The nouns above are examples of count nouns as they have plural forms. A number can precede them and an s can be added at the end. Noncount nouns, on the other hand, are nouns which only have a singular form, meaning a number cannot be added at the front and an s cannot be placed at the end. For example:

Phoebe the bulldog ate many old tables in order to make room for new furniture.

Here, tables is a count noun and furniture is a noncount noun.

The family wore bright smiles, sharing in the happiness of the young, married couple.

Here, smiles is a count noun and happiness is a noncount noun.

Noncount nouns can be placed into categories, like natural events (lightning, weather, snow, sunshine, moonlight, etc), food (poultry, pork, macaroni, penne, fish, etc), materials (wood, steel, cement, satin, glue, etc), and groups of similar things (luggage, baggage, furniture, vocabulary, money, etc). It is important to remember that such categories are not exclusively composed of noncount nouns, as they also include count nouns. For example, bean is a count noun in the food category but pork is a noncount noun in the same category.

Although macaroni is noncount, it is still possible to count the number of macaroni pieces you must eat before mum lets you have a stab at dessert. Noncount nouns can be quantified in two ways.

1) The word of can be placed before the noncount noun. This results in a prepositional phrase which can be placed next to a count noun.

Timmy counted seventeen pieces of macaroni left over and came to the conclusion that it was going to be a long night.

2) The noncount noun can be transformed into an adjective which is placed before a count noun.

Thunderstorms can cause power outages and this was something Timmy hoped for so he could discretely dispose of the macaroni.

Sometimes, nouns can be both noncount and count. Some examples include wine/wines, beauty/beauties, experience/experiences, and time/times.

Time passed slowly for Suzy, who was on a blind date with a retired clown.

In this case, time is noncount because there is no beginning or end to it. This is unfortunate for Suzy.

Suzy reminisced about the two times she had had good blind dates.

In this case, time is count because it refers to specific moments or experiences that are quantifiable in measurable units, like hours, minutes, or seconds.

It's tempting to speak of (or write of) the fishes Gunhilda owns as opposed to the fish she owns or the quality of one's vocabularies as opposed to the quality of one's vocabulary. In order to keep up with the caliber demonstrated in professional writing, we all should be conscious of the fact that authors write from experience and not experiences, publishers make money and not moneys, and YWS caters to youth and not youths.

NEW ARRIVALS
written by BlueAfrica < PM: >

Take a moment to welcome this week’s newest members to the site!

@In just two days of membership, @RyuCevenost has already completed twelve reviews! Check out their portfolio to return the favor .

@Blogger101 posted in the Welcome New Members thread with a question about reviewing. Check out her post to help her out .

@faunafaunt has earned their first review star! Head over to their wall to congratulate them .

RESOURCES RELAYS - 5/31
written by: Pretzelsing < PM: >

I (Pretzelsing) am the new resources reporter of Squills. The Resources are a tidy section in our forums that are dedicated to researched topics in a library of useful articles and the Ask an Expert section-which is pretty self-explanatory. You can also talk to other writers about your ideas in Writer’s Corner . And many many more. There are many gems in this section and so I suggest checking them out with me below:

1.How to write memory visions

@Afternight wants to know how to write about his characters single-image visions. The character recently suffered memory loss, and he’s writing in first person POV and is very open to suggestions.
One of the answers to the topic that @Arkhaion wrote caught my eye was:






Hmm, a very interesting fact that I didn’t know before. See, you learned something new today!

2.Words that we shouldn’t use in our vocabulary

@Nate recently posted a thread and linked us to an article he read about the overuse of words in writing.

3.A survey of questions for a novel

@Shiverfeather recently compiled a list of questions that she wants answered by some of the YWSers that will make an impact of her novel (however little or big). Here is the most interesting question out of all of them:






@Kyllorac wrote what I believe to be a valid answer to that question above:






There are four more other questions, which all require deeper thinking and understand of the world around you. I would suggest that you take a look at them.

4.Walker is ready to review

Our recently former featured member @Dreamwalker just reopened her thread in the “Will Review for Food” Section of our awesome website. She is very famous apparently for doing poetry reviews:






If you want to request a review by this awesome former FM and older YWS member, feel free to ask her directly on there (remember to link your story for easy access) Remember, she doesn’t bite!

That’s all for this week of the 1st article written by me(Pretzelsing) on the Resources Column. I hope that you found this interesting and intriguing and see you next week with another roundup that will contain interesting links that caught my eye. Enjoy your week!

THIS WEEK'S ROUNDUP – 5/31written by megsug < PM: >

Like riddles? Surveys? Sepia? Review Day? This Round Up is your soulmate. Get to know it.


@DeeDemesne is inviting all riddle solvers to a massive YWS scavenger hunt. He’ll be providing clues that will lead to certain pages on the site. Points, reviews, and “gold” can be accumulated while playing, depending on the difficulty of the clue. Gold will be used to determine a leaderboard and to “buy” certain perks later on. DeeDemesne has already given us the first clue:







So far, I’m stumped, but @Zhia, @Savvy, and @JKHatt have already figured the cipher out. The Ides of March has been given as a hint. You have the chance of winning thirty points and a piece of gold if you figure out this clue! The clues will only get harder after this, and the rewards bigger.


@AlexSushiDog has created a survey, and it’s meaningless by his own admission. Users just choose a number between 1 and 10. @Zolen is offended on the behalf of the number twelve:







Zero, I feel should also be included. The number eight is winning with six votes and poor one and five haven’t been voted for by one person yet. All of this data is incredibly important. You should contribute today.


@Dreamy is showing off her photography skills. She mainly uses her phone and favors a sepia filter, discussing an intriguing idea that colors are a “manipulative concept.” One of my favorite pictures of hers is:







Click the link to check out the rest of her sweet pics!


@Nate is looking for suggestions of changes for future review days to get activity back up. Several people have suggested changes and left feedback. One intriguing suggestion was left by @Paracosm:






Changes that have already been made for May’s review day are the number of teams, a goal posted in the banner, and the colors for review teams. Join the discussion now to get your own suggestions out there!

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

We love to run articles and questions, but we also love to advertise for you. Let people know about your new blog, a poem or story you’re looking for reviews on, or a forum thread you’d like more traffic on through Squills’ Shameless Plugs. PM @SquillsBot with the exact formatting of your advertisement, contained in the following code.

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