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!

See an empty position you'd like to fill? Find position descriptions and instructions to apply here .

1. R.E.D. HAS ENDED
2. NAPO COVERAGE
3. WORD OF THE WEEK
4. TWO CENTS
5. THIS WEEK'S LINK ROUNDUP
6. SHAMELESS PLUGS
7. SUBSCRIBERS

R.E.D. HAS ENDED! written by Princess Ink < PM: >



R.E.D. (or Review Every Day), is a contest to encourage YWSers to critique daily. Because this contest lasts for two months, this will test the contestants’ “stamina” to log in and review one piece a day—or more if possible. If you don't review for three days, a penalty falls on you.

Weeks passed as the reviewers steadily continued critiquing. The number of contestants dwindled as participants dropped out and donated points to @Contest’s account. But there were still some reviewers moving on and now the contest had finally ended. The top five contestants of R.E.D are:

1. @EternalRain wins this contest with a total number of 71 reviews. She will
certainly win a large number of points!
2. @Mea falls in second with 64 reviews.
3. Close behind in third is @Falconer with 62 reviews completed.
4. Fourth is @Carlito who has finished off 52 reviews.
5. @Nikayla with 46 reviews is fifth.

On April 1st, however, the members creating R.E.D. 2.0 had announced that they will not award any points. Was it really true? Well, this was merely an April Fool's Prank! Because the next day, Contest announced they will be splitting the points accumulated anyway: fifty percent for EternalRain, the champion; thirty percent for Mea; and twenty percent for Falconer. Let’s give a round of applause not only for the winners but also for all the contestants participating in R.E.D 2.0!

A final note to all YWSers: remember to keep critiquing—whether there’s a reviewing event or not—to both help the writers here improve their work and also to hone your self-editing skills.

NAPO COVERAGE written by Nikayla < PM: >


It's already that time of the year again! NaPowrimo is here again and people are already spewing out poems with the first day already passed. If you don't know what NaPo is, which I doubt because everyone's heard of NaPo, but, it's a challenge similar to Nanowrimo, but for poetry! The goal of those who participate in NaPo is to write thirty poems inside the month of April.

As tradition, @Rydia has taken on the role of hosting April Madness, a contest in which poets duel each other to see who ends up on top. The poets participating are getting out their first poems and a handful have already submitted their entries for the first round. For more information on April Madness, click this link!

Many poets have already begun to write their poems, and @Audy thought that it would be an excellent to highlight some of them on her wall! Speaking of Audy, she has been crazy in terms of posting on others' NaPo threads, and we thank her for all of the kind and wise words she gives out.

I wish good luck to all of those who are participating in NaPo! It's quite a challenge that I've decided to take on myself as well because it's a lot of fun, and as many of you know, I adore poetry. Keep writing, folks! You can persevere throughout this! As it's early into the month, there's not a whole lot to report on NaPo, but we'll be sure to check back in and give more updates.

THE WORD OF THE WEEK: ENNUIwritten by megsug < PM: >
Pronunciation: ahn-wee

Part of Language: Noun

Definition: A feeling of discontent and listlessness rooted in a lack of interest, occupation, or excitement; boredom

Used in a Sentence: Halfway through summer break, Elizabeth wasted away on the couch, her ennui overwhelming.

Origin: Ennui is picked out of the French language where it means boredom. It comes from another French word for displeasure or annoyance: enui. Enui came from the French word for the verb annoy: enoiier and anuier. Some sources include Latin roots in the word odio or hated

Related words: Ennuis (plural)

TWO CENTS: NAPO written by Aley < PM: >

As some of you may be aware, National Poetry Month is this April, and with this being the start of April, I thought it might be a good idea to go over what it means and why we do it.

National Poetry Month is basically a month dedicated to the writing of poetry. It's like National Novel Writing Month, but with poetry. Instead of writing 50,000 words, we write 30 poems, one for each day.

As a poet, I can tell you that writing a single poem a day is pretty unsubstantial. I can usually get on a topic I like to write about and write 3 rather quickly. If I want to talk about something in particular and I'm writing it by hand, I tend to write a few versions just to get all of my ideas out on paper and then I edit them together to create a poem.

This isn't the most efficient, and I'd post all three drafts as a poem, but that's what writing poetry can be like. NaPo is a private thing that you can either do with a group or alone. It's not something where you have to answer to someone, and it's not something that people are likely to engage you with.

On YWS, that's a little different. We like to make it big because it's something to participate in actively if you write poems. You can actually post your poems both on YWS and in threads for your NaPo, and usually there will be a few people giving feedback once in awhile.

We also do badges on YWS for people who want to write 30 poems, and some badges for different tasks, like writing a poem a day, commenting 30 times on at least 10 unique threads, and participating with prompts.

For me this month is all about getting in the habit of writing poetry because usually it's about this time of year when I try to start my New Years Resolution and write a poem a day. It's not hard, it's just that I get out of the habit, and that's the same for a lot of people.

All in all, NaPo is great for reading a lot of poetry that's in the beginning draft stage and for getting words on paper. It's not about the finished project as much as it is about the process, and that's one of the reasons I love it.

Hopefully you will to.

THIS WEEK'S LINK ROUNDUP 4/2 written by megsug < PM: >

We’re going prank free in This Week’s Round Up. We really are. I promise.


@DreamingForever has posted a ton of prompts they found on Pinterest or made herself. She welcomes anyone else to share their prompts as well. One of her best ones in my opinion is:







She has more where that came from too!


@Lumi wants to know why you review whether you’re shooting for stars, like being a good-doer, or want to beat everyone else in the leaderboards. Squills’ own @PrincessInk has a pretty lofty goal:







That’s a 124 reviews! How many reviews do you want to write this year?


No, not your anxiety. @Aley wrote an article about how to use the stress of syllables in words. This isn’t just for poets (though she’s got advice for them). Aley explains how writers incorporate stress into their prose:







The article is a gem for writers looking to add subtle nuance to their work. Check it out!


@Terian805 has started a great conversation about favorite albums released in the 21st Century. Genre preferences are strewn wide and far. @Willard introduced a cool… slightly terrifying album called Blood Visions by Jay Reatard. He describes it as:









After reading this thread, I have way more albums to listen to.

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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SUBSCRIBERS

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