Young Writers Society

Welcome to Squills, the official news bulletin of the Young Writers Society!
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1. FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: RIN321
2. THIS MONTH IN HISTORY
3. THE JOY OF NAPOWRIMO
4. AUTOMOBILES IN MOVIES AND NOVELS: PART ONE
5. DIGITAL WORDS - THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
6. NEW ARRIVALS
7. SHAMLESS PLUGS
8. SUBSCRIBERS

FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW: RIN321
written by Liberty < PM: >

Well, hello there, YWSers!

On the 4th of March, our very own @Rin321 became a Featured Member! She joined the site way back in December 9, 2014. She’s been working on her own novel for quite a while now, called The Secret of the Swan. She’s done seventeen reviews in February and currently in total, she’s got 197 reviews under her belt. And Rin was FM back in March of 2016. Well, anyway, I got the honor of reviewing her for Squills!


R: of course! send me any Q's and I'll answer them by the end of the day


R: I was honestly shocked. I had come back because I finally had more computer access and time to write and I wanted to come back and have my peers here help me because I want to get more serious about my writing. I just wanted to contribute back because it had been so long and I love the site, I never thought it would be noticed and I would become FM again after all these years!


R: Maybe all my activities since coming back? I've published a lot of chapters from my novel and I've done a lot of reviews, especially this past review day because I got into the spirit of things


R: I love the interaction of the members on this site. There are so many opinions and views and I love seeing reactions in reviews of my work. I love to see how people think about my plots and relate to the characters. It's not just like running your work through a grammar checker, it's human and you can improve aspects that draw in readers more which is really important when writing as well!


R: If they wanted to try and be FM, just be active and a good member of the site! I never specifically tried to be FM, I was just being a good member because I just wanted to be, but being active on review days, publishing, and being a constructive member are goals and attributes of being a FM.


R: I just want to thank every one here for welcoming me back and supporting my writing! special thanks to @writerkitty @Honora and @polishcommonwealth who read all the chapters of my novel and leave the best reviews, they keep me motivated and I love them so much!



R: Thank you for interviewing me and the congratulations! Have a great day!

That’s it for now! Thanks once again, Rin, for doing this interview. It’s very much appreciated. ^-^ If you haven’t already, feel free to go congratulate Rin on her wall.

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY

written by alliyah < PM: >

It's been a while since I've done a "This Month in History" article, in fact I think it's been exactly a year - MARCH 2019 Article - so let's take a step into the time-machine courtesy of YWS forums and search bar and see what was happening on YWS two, five, and ten years ago!

TWO YEARS AGO: March 2018

Featured Members
March 2018 had a host of wonderful users featured and all of them are still users who you're sure to see around the site. First in the month we had @rosette one of the friendliest users on the site. For the second half of the month we had someone who you might know if you've ever read an issue of Squills in the last year or so, our editor in chief @fraey (formerly concord and killeham) who is also on the general lit team for the Junior Moderators. And catching the last couple of days in March YWS featured @Kanome who has also spent some time as a Squills reporter and has been a fairly avid reviewer and writer on the site. Kanome's Feature , Rosette's Feature , Fraey's Feature

Classic Squills
Two years ago one of the most fabulous articles that has came across the squills newsroom was relased. It featured such breaking headlines as "Pancake thief commits arson" and little snippets about @Rydia's Pirate Crew. If you haven't read The Squills News Hour written by @CaptainJack you're in for a real treat! I recommend watching the video version for the full effect.

Featured Works
Taking a look through some of the featured works in March of 2018 I saw a familiar username pop up, the YWS poet and wall-philosopher extraordinaire @Arcticus. While Arc's poems are no stranger to the people tab it's a little rare for them to be posted over in the Literary Center so it's no suprise that their thoughtful spiritual poem about some of the familiar threads through the Abrahamic religions crescent, cross, and star made it to the Featured Works in March.

FIVE YEARS AGO: March 2015

Featured Members
We had two more great users featured in March of 2015! In the first half the month @SpiritedWolfe was featured. SpiritedWolfe (formerly Wolfare1) is one of our distinguished Junior Moderators and has written over 600 reviews since being on the site. In the second half of the month @Holysocks who is one of our Distinguished Moderators sporting an orange username and has been involved in pretty much all areas of the site during her time on YWS. Holysocks' Feature , SpiritedWolfe's Feature .

March Review Day
March 2015 had a spectacular Review Day with Team Ketchup taking the victory with 183 reviews against Team Cair Itthyrn with 137 reviews. The top reviewers were @donizback: 37 @RituparnaBhowmik: 24 @XPresidentTurtlesX: 22 @AstralHunter: 12 and @Audy: 12 Review Day Review

Storybook Newsletter
The March 2015 Issue is one of the earliest in the Storybook Newsletter Index. The featured Storybook that month was Lincoln Wood Private College Prep which was started by @Nike and was about a prep school in Washington State with a lot of drama and a little mystery too.

TEN YEARS AGO: March 2010

Featured Members
March 2010 featured a member that I've never met, but who sounds like a wonderful user all the same. @BenFranks was featured for the month of March, while they haven't been on the site for a while they certainly made their mark serving on the Junior Moderator Storybook Crew for four years which is a pretty awesome accomplishment! Hope you're doing well Ben, wherever you're at! Member of the Month Post

Statistics Extravaganza
In this year @Nate posted a Statistics Extravaganza that featured lots of interesting information about the site you can view it here: Statistics Extravaganza . According to the stats in March 2010 the top cities for site-activity were London, Sydney, Bristol (UK), Auckland (NZ), and Wellington (NZ).

That's all for our March findings! If you have anything from April or May in your YWS Scrapbooks let me know and you might find it in our next This Month in History article.

THE JOY OF NAPOWRIMO
written by fraey < PM: >

Hello Squills readers! We have an exciting announcement to make - National Poetry Month is coming in a few short weeks this coming April, and there is a challenge if you'd like to participate in writing some poetry. @alliyah set up CampNaPo while some users including @Traves, @Lavvie, @EverLight and @ChrisDixon helped with events and challenges, found here which was a way to get pumped for the big event and to start revving up your poetry brain.

The basic challenge for NaPo is to write 30 poems in total during April. Every year, people will come up with their own kinds of challenges and activities, such as following a theme or using different poetic structures; the choices surely are endless. I myself have competed for the last two years, pretty much since I started getting active again on YWS. My first year I just went for at least thirty poems, doing whatever kind of style I felt inspired to write in, and write down little observations from my daily life. This last year, I decided to do an all flower themed NaPo, which was a little difficult, but was a lot of fun!

I would absolutely recommend participating in NaPo this year, regardless if you believe you are gifted with poetry skills or not. There are so many fun activities you can participate in, including one of my favorites - NaPo Buddies where you sign up to be paired with someone that you exchange encouraging words and motivate each other to get through this super cool challenge.

For more general information, the 2020 NaPo Information Center can be found here to provide useful links and an index of all of the NaPo threads that have been made so far.

I hope to see you there come this April!

AUTOMOBILES IN MOVIES AND NOVELS: PART ONE
written by LZPianogirl < PM: >

Automobiles are a very interesting topic that hits close to home for me. My grandpa and dad used to buy, restore, and sell vintage cars, and then started collecting cars themselves. I have memories as a young child going to car shows, walking around, and looking at other people’s cars. When we’re watching movies, my dad will always point out the cars, either in the background or the one the protagonist is riding. I’d like for other people to experience knowing about automobiles in film, so enough about me, and let’s move onto the main part of this article! WARNING: I spoil parts of the following movies.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger is a classic when it comes to Marvel movies. It is 1941 and the world is in the throes of war. Captain America (Chris Evans) not only helps boost the morale of Americans, but he also helps save thousands of people by attacking Hydra, a Nazi-like association. In one of the final scenes, Captain America, Peggy, and Chester Phillips are speeding down the Hydra runway in Red Skull’s car, trying to catch their plane.

Red Skull’s car’s design was based upon a Mercedes 540K owned by a real Nazi leader. Hermann Göring’s Mercedes was custom built (so the steering wheel wasn’t jammed into his large stomach) and painted blue, earning it a nickname: The Blue Goose. The vehicle in the movie is a highly modified version of this car; it has six wheels instead of four, it’s black and not blue, but the bodywork shows that it is a Mercedes. You can find more information on the Mercedes 540K in this video.



The Incredibles

The movie, The Incredibles, is an amazing movie that came out in 2004. Director Brad Bird also worked on projects such as Ratatouille and Tomorrowland. The film is about a superhero family, who are forced into hiding because superheroes have been made illegal.

In the scene where Mr. Incredible is driving home from work, he is cramped inside his tiny car. It is turquoise at the top of the car and white on the bottom. This car is based on the Nash Metropolitan, more specifically, from the 1955-1958 Series. The Nash Metropolitan (and Nash Rambler) is an iconic car from a forgotten era. Car companies fought to create the best compact car when it was a new concept. Nash’s models were the only ones to become huge successes. They were different and had a different style than other cars at the time. You can learn more about the Nash Metropolitan here.

DIGITAL WORDS - THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
written by fraey < PM: >

Welcome to another edition of Digital Words, where I take both the original novel or book, and the form that it was adapted into, whether it's a show, or a movie, or something in between. Last time I went over Looking for Alaska and discussed how the book portrays young adults, and how the Hulu TV show evaluated the mid 2000s and poured life into these characters on the screen.

For this issue, I am partly reviewing another book dear to my heart and my younger teenage years - The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. What can I say about this book besides it being the love of my life for over a year? And that I spent hours pouring over these pages, the quotations, the conversations, the unspoken words, everything made me so emotionally invested in this novel. Now, I can say that there is some simplicity that readers may not enjoy as this book is written entirely in a series of letters that the narrator and main character called Charlie, writes to an unnamed person.

The reader is told at the very beginning of this book that every name mentioned is not real in terms of this story, so that everyone can remain anonymous to the receiver of the letters. All we are told about this mysterious person is that they behaved in a mature way at a house party, and that resonated with Charlie. In an interesting series of events, that incident is never expanded upon, and very rarely, if ever, referred to.

I actually made my first username ever on here based on this book, as ThePerksOfBeingAReader. Yes, it was long, but my fifteen-year-old self thought it was brilliant.

For some interested readers, the style of this novel dismayed them, and I can understand that. There are quite a few scenes that are muddied in details or descriptions, or even dialogue tags sometimes. It can read rushed, or far too slowed down, or even oddly whimsical, which may or may not be because of occasional drug use. (This book decidedly shows what can go wrong from taking drugs. I would not recommend taking drugs.) As well as homophobic slurs, there are mentions of abuse, and other content warnings. There's a sentimentality to this book, though, since the setting is the early 1990's, along with The Rocky Horror Picture Show and other classical culture references.

The movie might be a slightly better version of the book though, as we get to visualize all of these hurried conversations and awkward gestures and unspoken statements. Starring Logan Lerman as an adorable, endearing Charlie, Emma Watson for a hilarious, too-good-for-this-world Sam, and Ezra Miller as moody, charming Patrick, this whole creation is a marvel to behold. There is an amazing Heroes cover by the Wallflowers, set in the background at what might be the most picturesque driving scene I've witnessed in quite a while, and I just cannot say more about this film.

There is a fair amount of drug use and alcohol, and very poor decision making that might make this weird to watch with your parents. Take it from me. However, there are a lot of good lessons written between hilarious jokes and horrible things that people can say to each other in heated moments. This movie is unapologetic with showing how trauma, however deep down it may be, can affect someone in ways even they cannot comprehend.

Would I recommend this book and this movie? Yes, absolutely, but I would suggest being at least fourteen probably due to some of the content in here. I love these both so much. Read on and watch on everyone C:

NEW ARRIVALS
written by EternalRain < PM: >

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

@candywriter has seamlessly joined into the YWS community with their forum activity in the Randomisty forums, as well as their reviews!

@BhavyaMehta123 has already completed 11 reviews, gaining their first review star.

@IIUMBRELLAZ has been writing since she was in 3rd grade and is now a member of YWS! Currently, she has no works up but has been reviewing the works of other members and is well on her way to her first review star.

@ZaffranGrey has joined just recently and has posted a short story already. If you’d like to read it, check it out here: More Than FUll Circle .

SHAMELESS PLUGS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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If you'd like to be paired up with a Buddy for National Poetry Month this April you can sign up in the NaPo Buddies Thread by April 1st!

PM alliyah for questions.





Do you want to participate in a universe with other YWSers? Would you like to create a diverse universe and mold it as you write? Do you want to write a deep story in an interconnected universe? Do you like writing with others, or just worldbuild for stories? Young Writers Universe is always open and inviting!

• Not sure where to start?
  
  • Here's an intro!
• Want in on the community?
  
  • Join the club!
• Wanna just read along?
  
  • Aether's Heart
  • On Stolen Wings

That's all folks~ Now send us yours.

SUBSCRIBERS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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Do you, too, want to be enspoiler-ed and receive a personal weekly notification when the Squills newsletter is posted? Shoot a PM over to SquillsBot to let him know, and you'll be pinged along with the next issue!