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.

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

1. YWS OLYMPICS INTERVIEW: ABC POEM
2. WHY I JOINED AND STAYED ON YWS?
3. YWS OLYMPICS INTERVIEW: RYDIA
4. INFORMATION ABOUT WRITING
5. THE YWS OLYMPICS: EVENTS RESULTS
6. SHAMELESS PLUGS
7. SUBSCRIBERS

YWS OLYMPICS INTERVIEW: ABC POEM

written by EternalRain < PM: >

The YWS Olympics, an event that coincides with the global Olympics, took place last week. There were several events that anyone could enter - from a scavenger hunt to six word short story. I had the pleasure of interviewing @alliyah, the host and judge for one of the YWS Olympics: the Abecedarian Poem!



Alliyah: Of course! I'm hosting the Abecedarian Poem challenge. Which I think is in the running for event with the coolest name.



A: Sure! An abecedarian poem (or ABC poem) is a poem that uses the letters of the alphabet in successive order to form the piece. So in this event writers craft a poem where the first line begins with A, the second B, third C, and so on. For my event writers won't have to go through all 26 letters of the alphabet - but bonus points if someone does! I know those last few letters can get really tricky.




A: I was trying to think of an event that we hadn't done last time I participated in the Writing Olympics, and something that was still poetry related. My sister (@tgirly) introduced me to this particular type of poem a while back and I love it because there's just a bit of structure for a challenge, but it's really not so complicated that you spend the whole time worrying about the form.




A: Good question!

I'm planning on picking which poem I think is the best one written. To judge that, I would hope to see good use of imagery and word choice and a theme or narration that is engaging to read. Another aspect is how well the author adapts to the form - is their poem controlled by the Abecedarian form or would their poem still be impressive without that aspect.

Like other acrostic-like poetry, I think one of the main challenges for the Abecedarian will be achieving some level of consistent flow in the piece -- which is another aspect that I will be paying attention to in judging the entries.



A: Hmmm, well I'm only requiring writers to go from A to M, so that avoids most of the super difficult letters (Q, W, X, Y, Z) but I think J and even K might be a little bit hard, so I'm interested to see what creativity writers bring to those letters.

And, if you couldn't tell by my avatar and username... XD I have a special affinity for the letter "A" - so I'll be looking forward to reading the lines for that as well!

And that concludes some fun behind the scenes of alliyah’s Abecedarian poem (the event wih the coolest name)!

WHY I JOINED AND STAYED ON YWS?
written by Kanome < PM: >

People have often asked why I joined the Young Writers Society, and I never gave it much thought of about why I joined in the first place. I pondered on the question for a long time, always thinking the reasons why did I even joined and stayed. There were times that I was inactive on the site, but in the end, I came back.

One of the reasons I joined in the first place is because my friend at the time recommended me to join the site since she knew I enjoyed writing. Even though we don’t speak to each other anymore, I do appreciate her showing me this site where I’ve met wonderful people who enjoys writing as much as I do.

Another reason I joined is because I want to show the world by writing, my creativity and my ideas. I wanted to make people happy and enjoy the things I write. I usually don’t consider myself that good of a writer, but after meeting everyone on the site and the way they treated me, I gained a lot more self-confidence in myself, and I like to thank for every member for helping me feel better about myself.

I stayed with YWS after all these years is because it’s a place where I can really be myself. There were times where I was not able to be on for a very long time. I felt like there was something missing around those times, then I realized that the one place where I truly belong is YWS.

There isn’t much I can say except thank you for everyone on YWS for being so kind and generous. Thank you for showing your love and support for not just me, but to everyone who needed it most. Thank you and I am proud to be a Young Writers Society member.

YWS OLYMPICS INTERVIEW: RYDIAwritten by Aley < PM: >

This week I have a special guest who was able to pull herself away from the very busy YWS Olympic Schedule to grace us with a couple questions and answers. I'm very proud to announce I have @Rydia here with us today!

Rydia has been on YWS since early 2007 and is one of the top point holders on YWS with almost 2,600 reviews (2,585 at writing time)!

Rydia is also very active for NaPo with April Madness, and Scavenger Hunts which is what brings me to her doorstep today. Without further ado, I bring to you, my interview.


Rydia: Sure!


R: I might have to be a little edgy with my answer to this first question because it's very close to one we like to ask on the quiz! I'm going to say the first time we officially ran the scavenger hunt was for the 2014 Winter Olympics.


R: I love that sometimes even I'm surprised by what facts we manage to dredge up from the archives and it's fun to think people will be following the breadcrumbs and trying to work out how we found it or what we actually mean - we like to be pretty tricky with our wording.


R: This one isn't a hiding event! Most of the scavenger hunts we run are in a question and answer format where the hunt is for specific answers or information, rather than a misplaced topic or the paw prints like Iggy's version last year. We pick our questions based on what we think are interesting facts about YWS and we try to get people looking in areas of the site they may not have visited before, like the Hall of Fame.


R: For me it's a chance to learn something about YWS which you didn't know before and to feel more involved in the community. We have all these in jokes that have built up over the years and there are members who feel left out because they don't know who F.R.E.D. was or why Pat Buchanan is the answer to every question ever. We don't answer all of these questions but it gets members talking and either reminiscing or learning about the site.


R: I'm happy to humour you and this is a question I get asked a lot! I'm sure Nate loves how much I tell this story but basically I joined the site to shout at him.

I should start at the beginning, right?

There was another community before this called TYWC (The Young Writers Club) and it ran on an old style site where the page would go on trying to load everything indefinitely instead of just the most recent page of posts. It was already dying when I joined but it was home for me back then in the way that YWS is now. Maybe more so. I joined the site as a very impressionable 11 year old back in 2001 and I learned most of what I know about storybooks from there.

In 2007, someone spammed the site with the link to YWS at least a few hundred times, maybe even more, and it slowed the site down and brought it even closer to its inevitable death.

I decided to take it on myself to complain to the owner of this 'Young Writers Society' and came tearing over here and wrote what was probably a very impolite message to Nate! I fortunately took some time to look around the site and cool off before hitting send and when I saw how friendly and welcoming the place was, I realised the owner likely hadn't endorsed that kind of behaviour. So I sent a politer version of the message to Nate and he replied and said he was really mad about that too and that YWS actually existed because of TYWC.

After that, Nate and I became friends and I started exploring YWS and became part of the community. TYWC did die a few years later and it was still a big hit for me but YWS was my lifeboat. I stayed because I loved the community and it was great to have another place to join storybooks and to share my passion for writing with so many other like minded individuals.


R: Despite the fact that, as members get older they generally drift away from YWS, the average age of our active member-base is rising. This is exciting because it means we're still retaining a lot of our older members and even those who don't actively post any more, still stay in touch through the friendships they've built here. As our older members go out into the world and take up positions in the professional writing community, I hope that they will take everything they've learned from YWS with them and one day we might hear the site name-dropped on POD casts or mentioned in the thank you section in great pieces of literature.

Every year the YWS community puts feelers into other areas of social media - we have YWS'ers who are connected on facebook, instagram, Twitter and most recently we have YWS boards existing in Discord. Why wouldn't it be natural to one day see YWS so widespread that it transcends the internet and we find members meeting in person at writing conferences?

Maybe that won't happen in a few years but I think the community will continue to stay strong and that the friendships formed here are life-lasting.


R: Perhaps you should have asked what the answer to this year's scavenger hunt are or if we'll post them when they're done. I can't give you the answers just now I'm afraid, but we may put them up briefly at the end of the week or allow those who enter to know the correct answers for some of them!


R: That's a good question! It varies from year to year and it partly depends on how many questions we decide to re-use from previous hunts. The more we re-use, the less time we need to spend hunting through YWS for juicy new old bits of history we can use. We certainly spend longer putting it together than the 48 hours we give you guys to find the answers, but we do an hour or two here and there across several weeks and a lot of it is us discussing if a question is too hard or not hard enough. The day someone gets 100% of the answers right is the day we retire!

This year we are spared the loss of Rydia with the top winner coming out with 62% showing you just how hard it is to actually find all of this information they ask questions for! The winner, Mea, walked away with only two more answers correct than Iggy and fortis, and all three of them have been at this for a very long time.

So here is to another two years of Rydia gracing her with her presence!

Congratulations Meshugenah and Rydia on another successful Scavenger Hunt!

INFORMATION ABOUT WRITING
written by Kanome < PM: >

When it comes to writing, there is always room for improvement. Writers ask themselves everyday how to improve themselves when it comes to their writing skills. Today, I will be able to provide some tips of how to improve your writing and help you provide ways to create new ideas of what to write when you get that naughty “writer’s block”.

First, ask yourself: What is writing?
Writing is a form of art that is expressed through words. There are people who write how they feel, or simply taking their imagination through pencil and paper.

Here are some tips that I can provide for you of how to improve your writing skills.

Tip One: Write about something that first comes in your mind.
Just jotting down random thoughts in your mind can provide you with creative ideas for a story, especially if you can’t come up with an idea on your own.

Tip Two: Collaborate with a friend.
Collaborating with friends can be very helpful, especially if you think they are better at writing than you are. Two is better than one as I always say. Your friend can help you come up with ideas, provide tips of their own, or even just help you proofread your story that you are working on.

Tip Three: Find resources to use.
There are resources out there like books, internet, articles, etc - that can help you find the information you need to help you with your writing. I can provide you a couple of website to research on that can help take the path onto writing.

Seventh Sanctum

You can also go in the Forums on the YWS website and look under the Resources section, there are different forums to read that can provide you more information about writing.

I hope this is able to understand writing a little more for you, members of YWS. Hope you guys enjoy and remember, keep on writing!

THE YWS OLYMPICS: EVENTS UPDATESwritten by Aley < PM: >

As we wind down the Olympic Fever here are the results of events 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9!

Event 3

Congratulations on writing the best cohearent works without the use of the letter E. I couldn't even do it in a paragraph!

Event 4

Thanks a bunch for creating some snappy short stories with your six word style creations! You're the best! No, literally, you three got the top prizes, you did the best at this.

Event 5

Congratulations on your sizzling short stories stealing TheSilverFox heart!

Event 6

Writers be warned, these word war champs are coming after you this November with their finger-tapping trickery!

Event 7

The wonderous world of ABCs never stopped these fierce fighters in their goal of getting Perfect! Congratulations on a boisterously conquering delicate entries!

Event 8

An Amazing Mastery of the Search finds these hound dogs their homes with this scavenger hunt! Good job with your detective work!

Event 9

A hearty congratulations to the Stock Masters of Poetry who have made some wonderful poems based upon the stock photos provided for event 9!

The rest of the results will be announced in Squills when they've been announced on YWS! We are still waiting for the finals of the Villanelle challenge and the Space Ship exploration, as well as the final results for best participant and best team!

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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SUBSCRIBERS

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