Young Writers Society

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

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1. FM INTERVIEW: PART ONE BECCALICIOUS94
2. FM INTERVIEW: PART TWO GXLDENCRZWNS
3. RANDOMOSITY: HOME IMPROVEMENT!
4. THE 27 CLUB
5. SOCIETY PAGES
6. POETRY POPPERS: WALT WHITMAN
7. SUBSCRIBERS

FM Interview: Part Onewritten by Princess Ink < PM: >

Hello, YWSers! This time, there will be two FM Interviews for you to enjoy. The first to be interviewed will be @beccalicious94, who’s left her mark on this site with her many poetry reviews! She’s one of the older members of YWS, hailing from 2010, who made a comeback! I sat down with her to give her an interview:



beccalicious94: I love that YWS fosters a community of writers and readers eager to produce and share their own work and offer constructive criticism to help their peers.



becca: I feel honored! I don't think they make this decision lightly, so it's nice to be recognized.



becca: I mostly do poetry reviews because that's the genre with the most content that I'm interested in. I'm also interested in journalism and creative non-fiction, but there's far less of that on YWS. I like to review poetry because usually poems have once central idea or image and it's easy for me to see which parts of the poem fit that message or not. I love the figurative language in poetry, and finding comfort in poetry during sad times.

My advice for people who who want to review poetry is two-fold. First, see if you can identify the message of the poem, and if all parts of the poem support that theme. Second, be as specific as possible in your review. Say what you liked/what you didn't like. When authors revise their pieces, it's helpful to know what worked and what didn't.



becca: Definitely doing tons of reviews, and being active in forums/clubs.



becca: Such a hard question! If I had to nominate someone who hasn't previously been FM I would pick @Arcticus @marms @BlueAfrica or @Iridescence

S:Thank you, Becca, for all your answers! It was definitely an enjoyable interview

So that’s it with beccalicious94, YWSers! Now we’re passing on to the next Featured Member with @Nikayla, so enjoy!

FM Interview: Part Twowritten by Nikayla < PM: >

We're here with the second part of our Featured Member interview, this time with @gxldencrxwns, our latest additioh to the Hall of Fame! Not only is Gxlden an avid reviewer, she's also a pleasant presence on the site! Without further ado, here's how the interview went.



Gxldencrxwns: Well, I knew it would happen eventually, but I didn't know I would get it so quick.



G: Definitely!



G: When I first joined, I really didn't understand the whole reviewing concept. Once I got the hang of it, I couldn't stop. A lot of people have I've reviewed have told me my reviews helped them tons, and I feel I bring a lot of positivity to this site. I love it!



G: Of course. You can do many other things on this site: Participate in clubs, roleplays, and such. It's also nice to contribute. Also, don't start drama.



G: Well, when I first joined YWS, I figured it would be similar to Wattpad, but when I discovered and got the hang of reviewing, I fell in love with it. It's very nice to read other's works and give my full and honest opinion on them. I also love posting stories and poems just as much.



G: Well, I had a Wattpad account though it was hacked and I lost motivation in writing for a couple of months. I went online and searched up writing websites I could join that weren't Wattpad. Young Writers Society kept coming up, and here I am now.



G: Definitely! I love this place, and I don't plan on going anywhere any time soon.



G: I want to say thank you to everyone who supported my stories as well as every person whose story I've reviewed, they're a blast to read! And just...thank you for everything. For choosing me as featured member, for the countless support, and everything inbetween. I couldn't think of a better place to be.



G: As far as Knowledge Base articles go, I haven't really stuck my nose in that yet, so I really can't say anything about them.



G: No problem!

Unfortunately, that's all we have for this time! Interviewing Gxlden ended up being a lot of fun, though that's all we have for you. Until next time, readers!

RANDOMOSITY: HOME IMPROVEMENT!written by Lumi < PM: >

Welcome to another edition of RANDOMOSITY, the column where we grab YWSers from their daily routines and ask them questions about nonsensical subjects that will change your lives forever! Today I'm joined by @Nikayla, @Castor, and @Willard, who almost all had some wonderful insight on the beauty that is YWS' face. I will warn you now, though: things...got a little weird.

Let's start out with Nikayla, where I almost lost my very soul and joy for journalism!


N: YWS blue is mediocre. So is Tumblr blue and Twitter blue and Facebook blue.


N: I'm not a magic 8 ball. Don't ask me this.


N: You repeated yourself. I hope you spill your coffee on your favorite shirt tomorrow morning.


N: A cinder block. Roads are sturdy.


N: In order to acess any form, you should have to watch The Room three times. Twice right-side-up and once upside-down with the company of the whole MST3K cast.


And BOY was I glad that was over! I almost made a deal with a DM to get out of my chair! Though I will admit that a movie with the Mystery Science Theater 3000 cast sounds nice...hm. Either way, next up we have Castor, all the way from Jupiter's Hamster colony!



C: The YWS blue is absolutely perfect! Great for brainwashing people into loving writing preventing headaches when staring at the screen. The Tumblr blue is... alright, but it doesn't hold a candle to the awesomeness of the YWS blue! Twitter blue? Pssh, it sucks. YWS blue is the best! It's great for writing!


C: Is purple better for brainwashing? Purple is a lovely color! Anything our overlords lovely staff members say, I'll go for it! A nice shade in between blue and purple would be good. A purpleish blue wouldn't work. A blueish purple couldn't work either. Hmm, I think a purpleish blueish purple blue would be the absolute best color for the evil schemes writing environment and achieving more internet popularity.


C: Are we allowed to have our own favorite colors? Oh boy! Oh, only from the approved color list? Yes, I think a nice blue-green would be my favorite.


C: I would add in a bunch of spinning circles with the black and white spirals, like the ones in the brainwashing room that I see all the time! It would really help new users ease into our friendly and accepting environment!


C: Are these Angry Birds spinning and black and white? Do these angry birds chant into the night about the benefits of joining our little evil and frightening kind and welcoming writing forum? Do the overlords staff members approve of these Angry Birds? If so, I'm all for it!

Although, we should really rename Candy Crush to Crush Your Writer's Block. If you get a combo, then you won't be taken away by monkeys chanting about semicolons you can be allowed to post.


Big Brother loves us all. Big Brother is all. Hail. Hail. Anyway, here's WonderwallWillard, my final (and most insightful!) guest! Same questions, very different answers. Take note, site designers! Get some blood orange up in here! Or was it alabaster...?



W: Blue is an inherently sexist color. Rumor has it, one in thirty four men actually can't see blue. Now, I understand the site doesn't have a large male population, but we do exist. And it just so happens that every single male member on YWS have the gene where they can't see blue. Nate can't even see blue. He had his mother pick it out for him. I've tried writing him letters but he just never answers. I've never been on any sites other than Reddit or YWS so I can't offer a proper comparison. But listen to me here, Nate; we need the site to be changed to a manly color. I have a perfect suggestion. Alabaster. Make everything alabaster.


W: Who knows. Probably not. Rumor has it, my uncle painted himself purple so that his coworkers would like him more. He nearly died from paint asphyxiation.


W: Alabaster. Rumor has it, I didn't have my sense of vision until age nine. That was the first color I ever saw.


W: High school dating simulator with the same graphics as Spongebob Squarepants: Creature From the Krusty Krab for the Ps2. You are a new kid at school who has only written one story before, a dystopian thriller that takes every single trope from Maze Runner and Divergent. You walk through the halls of YWS: School of Hard Knocks, and you first encounter the pretentious poetry kids who, after you inform them about proper capitalization, scold you aggressively and make you eat lunch in the bathroom. After awkward encounters with the Storybookers and roleplayers, you eventually meet another newbie who wants to write a John Green-esque love story about two kids with muscular dystrophy. Together, you work to take down Nate. And eventually get mod status but retire after two weeks. You also date, because it can't be a dating simulator without dating.

W: I never flush. Anyways, rumor has it, the only mobile app ever created is 2048. Every time you get up to a 256, you get access to the forum. 512, you get to post. Anything higher, you get electroshocked. You don't know how much I envy you.

THE 27 CLUBwritten by Iridescence < PM: >

Hello everyone! Iridescence here with this week’s music article about The 27 Club.

The 27 Club is a group of musicians that have all passed away at the young age of 27 Some members include Jim Morrison, lead singer of the band The Doors, or Alexandre Levy, a composer, pianist, and conductor from the mid to late 1800s. Is the 27 Club a “fad” just to seek attention, a big government scheme, or is it all just one big coincidence? In this article, we will discuss four of the main seven well-known members of the 27 Club, which are Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, and Kurt Cobain.

Janis Joplin was a rock musician in the 1960s. She was born in 1943 in Port Arthur, Texas. Growing up, she had an undying love of music. She was a very good student and rather popular amongst her peers at age 14, until the effects of puberty came in when she gained some weight and acne came up on her face. Because of this, she was made fun of and called ugly. She started to rebel by ditching the popular late 1950s women’s fashion and wore men's shirts and tights or short skirts. She was sexually promiscuous and swore more than women at the time should. She then gained popularity in her career when she joined Big Brother and The Holding Company.

Joplin’s drug abuse began not long after her career, and sadly it didn’t take long to go out of control. She had an on-and-off relationship with substance abuse. In 1965, after a stint of methamphetamine, she tried to cut back with drugs and alcohol. At Woodstock 1969, she even mixed alcohol and heroin before her performance. On October 4, 1970, she died due to an accidental heroin overdose. She was kneeling over to do something and she hit her head on the table next to her. She was found dead the next morning.

Another member of the 27 Club includes Jimi Hendrix, a very popular guitar player in the 1960s. He also was a singer and songwriter in his band known as The Jimi Hendrix Experience. He was born in 1942 in Seattle, Washington and had a rather difficult childhood. Sometimes, he would live with relatives or even acquaintances. Growing up as a teenager, he learned how to play guitar and enjoyed it and he soon grew up to be a legend.

He had a band growing up, called the Rocking Kings. In 1959, he dropped out of high school and worked odd jobs. In 1961, he enlisted in the United States Army. While he was in training, he still found time for music and formed another band called the King Kasuals. He served in the army until 1962, when he was discharged from a parachuting injury. After he was discharged, he had more time for music and played backup for several performers. As he delved into his music career, he started having substance abuse and alcohol problems.

Hendrix did LSD, cocaine, and amphetamines. He also struggled with alcohol. In 1967, he was abusing drugs regularly, even on tour. When he drank, he was very violent. He committed vandalism, he attacked his friends, and even his girlfriends. Before Hendrix died, he took nine Vesparax sleeping pills. The pill contains 50 mg of brallobarbital, 150mg secobarbital, and 50mg hydroxyzine that is used as a sedative. One whole pill could put a grown man to sleep for roughly eight hours, but he died due to asphyxiation of his own vomit. He obtained the pills from his girlfriend at the time, Monika Dannemann, a German figure skater. He died on September 18, 1970.

Amy Winehouse was born in 1983 in the suburb of Southgate in London. Winehouse was surrounded by jazz growing up. Her uncles on her mother’s side were actually professional jazz musicians.At the age of 12, she received her first guitar. By the age of 16, she was expelled from school, but she caught her first big break.

During this time, she starting becoming unstable, a party girl, if you will. She would show up really drunk to her club or TV performances, not even close to sober. She couldn’t even sing a whole set. On August 8, 2007, Winehouse overdosed on several drugs. She overdosed on a mix of heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine, whiskey, and vodka. On tour in Norway in 2007, she was arrested for marijuana possession. Then in January 2008, a video of Winehouse snorting crack cocaine surfaced; because of this, she went to rehab, but only for a brief period of time.

Despite her musical success, her health and personal life started to deteriorate. Her erratic behavior also continued. Even after a concert, she returned to a London clinic where she had began getting treatment for emphysema and an irregular heartbeat from the drugs she had been doing. Her marriage with Blake Fielder-Civil then disappeared by the end of 2008. Sadly, on July 23, 2011, she joined the 27 Club from accidental alcohol poisoning at the young age of 27.

Kurt Cobain was the lead singer of the late 80s and early 90s band Nirvana. He was born in 1967 in Aberdeen, Washington.Growing up, he showed interests in art and music. He excelled at drawing. He also learned piano just by ear and enjoyed playing with a toy drum set his parents gave him. Cobain even played little league baseball. At age nine, his parents divorced and he became withdrawn. At this time, his uncle gave him his first guitar. It was fairly beat up, but nonetheless, he learned and gained a passion for guitar.

Cobain’s life changed when he started listening to punk rock. He befriended one of the members from a local punk band. Cobain and the members of the band hung out, and as high school progressed on, Cobain started drinking and doing drugs. He would also get into fights with his mother. In July of 1985, he got arrested for spray painting buildings in town. Several months later, he started his first band, Fecal Matter. They recorded some songs in his aunt’s house, but they never performed at any gigs. In 1988, Nirvana was formed. Their signature sound included punk and heavy metal, creating the sub-genre of rock, grunge with a raucous guitar sound crossed with a lazy vocal delivery. Although later on, in 1990, he met another musician, who happened to be the lead singer of the band, Hole, Courtney Love. Eventually, they got married and had their daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Then later in 1991, away from his personal life, the band gained popularity. Their album Nevermind was released and it was very well liked. Their hit single Smells Like Teen Spirit even skyrocketed into popularity. Yet regardless of how Nirvana was all the rage, Cobain’s personal life was turmoil.

Cobain started using heroin in the early 1990s. It was an escape as well as some relief for his chronic stomach problems that he actually had. Love was also reported to use heroin before she was pregnant. On a break tour on March 4, 1994, in his hotel room in Rome, Italy, he attempted suicide by overdose. Fortunately, Love found him so he was rushed up to the hospital while he was in a coma. When he returned back to the United States, he was mostly a hermit, some would say. He spent most of his time being alone and high. Love even held interventions for Cobain to try to get him off and away from drugs. He checked into a chemical dependency clinic in Los Angeles, but he left a few days later.

On April 5, 1994, Kurt Cobain died. He put a shotgun in his mouth and he died instantly. He left behind a suicide note in which he addressed his wife, daughter, and fans. His body was found three days later on April 8. Even though his death was ruled as a suicide, there are other conspiracies that his wife, Courtney Love had actually murdered him. Cobain died at age 27, like the other members discussed, signifying that the 27 Club is true.

Is this all just one big coincidence, where musicians have died at age 27 and it came to be known as the 27 Club? In my eyes, I see the 27 Club as all of these influential musicians agreeing to die at 27. For example, these four musicians basically sought for the same thing: something different. They were all very creative and they had strong influences to the music world in different ways. They made a huge impact and their music lives on today. By dying at 27, maybe it was their way of making another impact on the world, considering they wanted difference, therefore creating the 27 Club.

Although, according to an article from Independent Magazine, they claim that the 27 Club doesn’t exist. There are roughly 60 members, but really, only seven of them are very well known and influential. Regardless of this theory, I still firmly believe in the 27 Club. Growing up, each of these musicians had difficult lives, they were all caught up in the scene of drugs and alcohol abuse, and they all died at the young age of 27.

That’s all for this article. Be sure to tune in next week!

SOCIETY PAGESwritten by EternalRain < PM: >

Welcome to another society pages! It’s been a week or two, but I’m back reporting the latest tags, trends, and posts here on YWS!

This week, tons of new hashtags have popped up. #DragonHoard is saying what you would hoard if you were a dragon! @Mage, @PrincessInk, @Mea, and @DragonWriter22 would (and do) hoard books. @soundofmind wishes to hoard rooms and have a big house with just… rooms!

#fivequestions is a mini, 5 question questionare! Another ‘five’ is #fivefunfacts . @Iridescence loves succenlents and cacti, @Sheyren is actually a potato, and @PearlC10’s feet are itchy when they wash the dishes - which doesn’t sound like much of a fun fact, and @Sheyren is actually not a potato.

#mentalcheckup is a tag to check up with yourself, which can be very important - make sure to ask yourself this. And sometimes finding someone to talk to helps!

Love personalities tests? #mypersonality is a tag based off the 16 personalities test. @RoseandThorn is an INFP, as is @Wolfical. @marms is an ENFP.

#magic is a tag where you describe the magic or magic abilities characters in your book have. @TheSilverFox’s character, Terasu, has the ability to conjure up and manipulate flames.

There have been quite a few hashtags circling lately! And if you want, you can always create your own.

@Lauren2010 has just gotten a request from an agent to read her full manuscript!

@Lael has written out a plan for all the rest of their summer assignments. Organizing is the first step!

Going along with the ‘L’ username theme, @Love saw the new Spiderman movie and their favorite superhero is Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man.

In other news, @racket got her driver’s license this week, @Sassafras has finished applying to colleges, @Deanie is moving (back) to the UK to study creative writing and English literature, and @screamingsloth, though having some bad parts in their day, got to pet baby goats and bunnies.

If you’ve been doing anything fun this summer or have a new #hashtag idea, get posting!

POETRY POPPER: WALT WHITMANwritten by Aley < PM: >

Today for a Poetry Popper I thought I'd shake things up and do a writer who isn't one I would like on my Facebook page. He's a good writer, don't get me wrong, but sometimes it's hard to read his work, and not always for a good reason. That's right everybody, my not-so-favorite poet, Walt Whitman, the self-proclaimed speaker of all!

Background

Whitman wrote from a time surrounding the American Civil War. He has a variety of styles to his work, from stuff about love, and happiness, acceptance, and unity, to a type of writing viscerally aware of the gore that happens during a civil war, or a war in general. As a man, he did great things. He helped ease dying soldiers in their toughest times, and he wrote a poem that might as well be considered a novella of the epics, but all in all, if you don't have a grasp for the idea of "writing everything" as an art form, you probably won't appreciate his poetry quite as much as someone who writes "bare bones" or for profit.

Poems By:

There is no shortage of work from which we can draw, just a shortage of short work. Because of our need for brevity, before this becomes a full course meal rather than a chicken popper, we will be looking at "Reconciliation" although if you have time, "The Wound Dresser" and "A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim" are both good poems along the same lines. They are all poems from his warring times.

Just be careful what you read if you're under age because he can get mature without warning.

Reconciliation

Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash
__again, and ever again, this soil'd world;
For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead,
I look where he lies white-faced and still in the coffin-I draw near,
Bend down and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

The Norton Anthology American Literature 1820-1865 v. B

This poem is a good feeling for Whitman's types of poetry. He tends to talk about things symbolically, and potentially do things symbolically? Like, to me, he's not kissing the corpse to kiss a corpse as we would kiss our loved ones, but to show compassion, and a sense of "someone loved you" sort of thing. That's just the feel I get from the majority of his poems. He tends to dwell more in the physical stuff that happens rather than explaining or entering the metaphysical, or the imaginative. Because of that, he can get really boring to read if you don't read into his work.

For instance, this poem is pretty blunt about what is actually going on, and if you just read the first two lines, you might think it's about the beauty of war, but it's really not. It's about the beauty of an end of war, it's about the last person being dead, and about the peace that should return, but that's all just subjective reasoning from what he's saying "For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead" meaning that the enemy, who is a blessed man, is dead, and with that death of his enemy, he is mournful for his own future death, and for death in general, but at least he's not still in the act of dying.

That being said, I would not recommend many of his longer poems until you're 18+ because he wrote exactly what was on his mind, and he did not censor himself for children.

Until next time!

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