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. FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: CORVIDCONVALESCENCE
2. A KNIGHT UPDATE
3. SOME SUPER SERIOUS BUSINESS
4. FOCUS ON THE FORUMS
5. THE EPICS: SONG OF MYSELF 4, WALT WHITMAN
6. THIS MONTH IN HISTORY
7. SHAMELESS PLUGS
8. SUBSCRIBERS

FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: CORVIDCONVALESCENCEwritten by BiscuitsLeGuin < PM: >

Another week, another Featured Member on YWS. This time, it's the wonderful @corvidconvalescence! We caught up with them to see how they're liking the spotlight.


corvidconvalescence: It feels great, if a little surprising!


c:Yes!


c: A friend on discord recommended YWS when I said I wanted to find good roleplaying partners. YWS was what I was looking for and so much more! The community has been super positive and helpful, and the site as a whole has been great for my motivation.


c: I’d like to be more active in the forums. I’ve posted in a few LMS and NaPo threads, but it’d be nice to be involved outside of special events.


c: It’s pretty nit-picky, but I’d change the size of the banners on users’ profiles. It’s so hard to find pictures that fit!


c: Participate in write-ins! It’s a great way to meet new people and get feedback, even if you aren’t getting much writing done.

Thanks again to corvid for giving us their time and thoughts!

A KNIGHT UPDATE

written by alliyah < PM: >

The Knights of the Green Room have been busy and a new series of achievement have been made in late June, early July!

Knight News:
Knight Rosette @rosette was spotted riding her new horse, Thor, across the Knight Practice Grounds.

Newly Knighted:
Three Knights have recently completed and logged their first 10 Green Room Reviews and graduated from the rank of Squire to Knighthood. These new knights are Knight Lives4Christ24 (@Lives4Christ24), Knight WritingPrincess (@WritingPrincess), and Knight Sound (@soundofmind).

New Squires:
New user, @Scrivener has decided to enter the noble order of Knights of the Green Room as a Squire! Please stop over and offer them a hardy welcome!

Other Knight Achievements:
New knight, Knight Lives4Christ24 @Lives4Christ24 has achieved the distinction of earning both her sword and shield.

Knight Arden @arden has also earned their shield.

Knight Manilla @manilla was able to earn their Full Armor.

And last, but certainly not least Knight Izanami @izanami was able to earn a Chest of Silver!

A Word from the Commander:
This week, delivered via horse, a message was delivered to the Squills News Room with "COMMANDER" written in scrawling letters on the header. The message reads:



And that's all the updates from the Knights of the Green Room for this week!

For more information regarding recent knight achievements: The Great Hall .
For more information regarding Knighthood and Badge Challenges like the Village Badge: Badge List and Information .

SOME SUPER SERIOUS BUSINESS

Written by LadyBird < PM: >

FOCUS ON THE FORUMS

written by alliyah < PM: >

The forums are an excellent place on YWS to get information, discuss serious and non-serious topics, and get involved in the community. There's topics out there for everyone to get involved in. Here are a few that were hoppin' this week!

Book Discussions
The book discussions continue on @Evander's thread for sharing a book you've read this month. This week @niteowl, @BlueAfrica, and @Mea got excited about The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making while @Traves, @Meshugenah, and your's truly discussed their own reading activities. If you want to add a post about a neat book you've read or browse the thread for book recommendations, follow the link here: What's a cool book you've read in the past month .

Writing Feedback
Over in the Writer's Forum @Zoom is looking for some feedback on an old story concept. Here's one aspect of the setting:

Shinedon - a volatile world where the human-type-species are unable to develop a civilization due to the harsh, jungle/desert environments where the plant life and animals overpower the humans

That sounds pretty interesting to me! If you'd like to join @DarkPandemonium and @Rosendorn in giving feedback you can check out this thread: Singles and Pairs . And if you'd like feedback on your own story concept, you can start your own thread.

Pitch Feedback
Another place to go if you'd like some feedback on a pitch or story concept is the appropriately named Pitch Feedback . This is another neat thread started by @Evander where anyone is invited to participate. You basically rate the last pitch that was given and then give your own. The current pitch up for feedback is @BlueAfrica's so head-down and take a look.

Art Highlights
An additional area of the forums that has been becoming more active recently is the "Art & Photography" Section. Here you can take a look at various users' art or even post your own. If you want to check out what some YWS users are working on, @Lightsong has been updating his thread Light's Weekly Drawing Assignments and @TheWeirdoFromBeyond has also been creating some art here Weirdo's art page .

Well those are your forum highlights for the week, and I've just scratched the surface!

THE EPICS: SONG OF MYSELF 4, WALT WHITMANwritten by Aley < PM: >

Welcome back to reading about this epic. In this first section I'm going to be providing links to the beginning sections of this saga so that you can go back and read ones you have missed. They will be in a makeshift table of contents at the bottom.

That being said, it's good to get back to Whitman, as shocked as I am to hear myself say that. Whitman provides a good chance to explore human nature with his unabashedly blunt forwardness. In the last section, he was being rather explicit, so I had to cut out the actual body of the poem, and in this section, well, it's not as naughty as the last one. Let's get into this!

Song of Myself

4
Trippers and askers surround me,
People I meet, the effect upon me of my early life or the ward and city I live in, or the nation,
The latest dates, discoveries, inventions, societies, authors old and new,
My dinner, dress, associates, looks, compliments, dues,
The real or fancied indifference of some man or woman I love,
The sickness of one of my folks or of myself, or ill-doing or loss or lack of money, or depressions or exaltations,
Battles, the horrors of fratricidal war, the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events;
These come to me days and nights and go from me again,
But they are not the Me myself.

Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am,
Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary,
Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest,
Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next,
Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,
I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.

Analysis

This one is one of the most complex I've come upon yet. To analyze this properly, I really need to dig into what the different words are referencing. To begin with "Trippers."

To me, a tripper is someone who attempts to make you fall, to make you hurt yourself by colliding with the ground, but who is tripping him? What is he talking about? Tripping him physically or emotionally? I feel like here we're talking about people who are trying to get him off of the path of writing poetry, or writing how he wants to with this open dialogue. It feels as though he's saying "Trippers and askers" are a bunch of people who just keep trying to change his course, convince him that he's doing things wrong.

It's a familiar feeling for me because oftentimes when I'm explaining where I am in life, people ask me questions as if gearing towards derailing my life. It's painful to have to explain to my grandmother that I'm not making any money doing what I love when she asks how I'm doing, or when people see I haven't moved out of my parent's house yet even though I'm 27. That's hard. That's what resonates with me when he talks about "trippers" because I know those people, they're the ones who ask questions to make you feel shame for what you are doing in life.

"Askers" on contrast, are people who do it out of ignorance. They still do the same thing as a tripper, but it's not on purpose.

He jumps into a list from here, and each list, each line has a different flavor. The first list is all about those people who are trippers or askers, and how they create an effect on his life. They change him even if he doesn't want them to, and they're changing more than just him too. Next, he starts being more specific. This next list changes gears towards things which are innovative, different influences on his life through things he's around, like inventions, authors, that sort of thing. Next, he goes into the minute, the small things he does every day which change him in some minor way, like dressing up for dinner, and so forth.

Then we get into his emotional changes, people influencing him emotionally. He talks about how people are indifferent to him, people he cares about romantically are ignoring him, both men and women, and I wonder if at this point in his life he's still trying to balance between being homosexual and bisexual, or if he's attempting to barricade his emotions through the protective shield of letting people assume he's attracted to both men and women with this comment. There's very little way to know for sure. He could also be talking of a platonic love.

He's gone through most of the different influences of his life, so it's only right to go into sickness as well, and war. He's dealt with war. Most of his later poems deal explicitly with war. Whitman's most beloved poems come out of his wartime poems from the civil war era.

"But they are not the Me myself" is a very powerful wrap up from what he's saying. Basically, he's listed all of these things which affect a person, and then saying, "These aren't who I am, these aren't the 'ME' I want to show you." He's saying that despite all of these moment to moment changes, all of these outside influences, he is who he is and that's not changing. He's unable to be swayed at the core of who he is from what he is. He's watching what happens around him, watches how he's affected, and comes back to himself to write.

The last stanza of the poem is very impactful too. He's watching other writers, watching how he used to be, remembering what he used to write like, what he used to do to appease the other writers, and he's not being critical of it, he's choosing to abstain from judgement both good and bad in order to be in a neutral middle ground where he can observe.

I think that's a good thing to do once in a while, especially as a writer. Finding the indifference you can get towards whether something is good or bad can help us all balance our responses, make ourselves feel less offended when someone gives criticism, or compliments, and it can help us be more open to other points of view. We are not the be-all end-all for what is good or bad writing, and we have to recognize that by stepping back and observing, not judging.

Anyway, I feel like this particular section of the poem is a good read and I can read a lot into it personally. Hopefully you enjoyed it too!

Table of Contents
1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY

written by alliyah < PM: >

YWS is getting older! And you know what that means.... Well among other things, it means that there's enough history here to do a "This Month in History" Feature. This week I'll be taking a look at what was going on in July 10, 5, and 2 years ago! Let's see what's different and what's the same.

TWO YEARS AGO: YWS July, 2016

Featured Members
Over the month of July in 2016, YWS had three Featured Members. It seems like just yesterday these three were being featured. They were @cleverclogs, @Lael, and @Junel.

Christmas in July
Christmas in July has been going for several years now - in 2016 it was a particularally strong year! 6,124 gifts were given by 283 senders. @Aley was full of Holly Jolly spirit, sending 404 gifts, which was the top number.
A Very YWS Christmas in July Review

FIVE YEARS AGO: YWS July, 2013

Featured Members
Over the month of July in 2013, YWS had three Featured Members, you might be still be familiar with them. They were @StoneHeart, @ArcticMonkey, and @Omnom.

Featured Works
One of YWS's most iconic poems was posted by @veeren in July of 2013. Today it has 48 comments and 91 likes! If Random Were A Language I Would Eat Chocolate] .

Storybooks
In the storybook world, a successful Storybook called "The Orphans" was launched. It was started by storybooker @thelostone. There were 7 characters, and each member of the storybook roleplayed as an orphan on the Orphan Train.
You can still check out that Storybook here in the Archives: The Orphans

TEN YEARS AGO: YWS July, 2008

Featured Members
July of 2008 brought two Featured Members. They were @Demeter (who is now a distinguished moderator) and @JFW1415 an avid writer and reviewer.

Instructor of the Month
July's Instructor of the Month: JabberHut
Back in 2008 they had a position called "Instructor" around the site, and in July the user @JabberHut was named "Instructor of the Month"!

Record Breaking Attempt
Let's break the record!
There was also a scheme during this month to break the record of most people online at once, which back then was set at 370!

And that wraps up This Month in History!

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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SUBSCRIBERS

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