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Young Writers Society


Squills 5/31/20 - 6/7/20



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Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:40 am
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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!

CREATIVE STAFF

Spoiler! :


Editor-in-Chief
EditorAndPerks

General Editors
EternalRain
CaptainJack

Friendly Neighborhood Robot
SquillsBot

Literary Reporter
CaptainJack

Community Reporter
LZPianoGirl
Liberty
Available - PM Squillsbot if interested

New BloodHound
ShadowVyper

Creativity Reporter
Bullet

Poetry Enchantress
alliyah

Resources Reporter
Available - PM Squillsbot if interested

Storybooks Status Reporter
ScarlettFire
Clairia

Writer's World Columnist
Available - PM Squillsbot if interested

Social Correspondent
EternalRain

Code Master
Available - PM Squillsbot if interested

General Reporters
neptune
Asith
yellow
Available - PM Squillsbot if interested

Ghost Reporters
amelie
BiscuitsLeGuin
Clarity
elysian
Kanome
shaniac
TheWeirdoFromBeyond
writeasmile



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 apply to become a Squillian Journalist by submitting a sample article to SquillsBot today!





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Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:46 am
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FEATURED MEMBER INTERVIEW - KATTEEX
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written by Liberty < PM: >

New month, new featured member! @katteex became FM on the fourth of July. She’s been a member of the site for quite a while, since 2018 (so long ago…), but wasn’t active until just recently. In the May Review Day, Kattee has done 15 reviews in only 24 hours. Is that awesome or what?

Anyways, I got to interview her!

Squills: Hello Katteex! I'm a reporter for Squills and I was wondering if it's cool with you to share a few of your fresh, brand new experiences as FM with us?

Katteex: Absolutely! It's an honor to be interviewed by you, Libs.

S: Alright then! What was your first reaction when you realized you were FM?

K: I was dumbfounded, really. It was so sudden. I was supposed to go online for the sake of reposting my thread and would immediately log out so I could focus on my article. Then, coincidentally, I got the notif and it took quite some time before my mind processed it. I had to reread it a few times thinking that I understood it wrong. I thought that perhaps it's just a special mention but here we are.

S: Haha, that must have been exciting! What do you think you've done around the site that gave you this wonderful spot?

K: I think it's because I put a noticeable effort into reviewing works last May review day? Or because I participated in the forum and made a review thread? I'm just copying what Que's thread stated because I'm not so sure oops

Possibly, it's because I've taken the initiative recently? I noticed that my predecessors became featured members since they've contributed something that impacts numerous members or even the whole YWS community. What's lovely about getting this recognition is that you don't earn it because you're a great writer, but because of your personality -- how you treat people, how you make them feel, and most importantly, how you can inspire and motivate them to continue writing.


S: Nice! You mentioned reviewing - what’s your favorite part about it?

K: Other than being able to help my fellow writers, it's a great writing exercise. Last review day, I was impelled to write a lot of reviews (that were still constructive) in a short amount of time. Not only does it measure how much I know about writing (the rules and when to break them, style, content), but also stimulates my mind to think and write faster. I've learned so much from YWS' system of "give and take" as it points out my mistakes and puts what I learned into practice by letting me place a review.

S: Awesome! What's your favorite part of the site and why?

K: That’s a tough question. I like everything? I feel like I just went in for a safe answer haha.

Essentially, this community is filled with writers and artists, but what makes it different from others is that (if not all) most members are encouraging and polite. They give lovely feedback, large doses of inspiration, and a considerable amount of their time. They’re attentive to what I’ve been doing (as long as I post them in the people’s section or the forum) and would support me. The members make the whole YWS animate. It’s a rarity to find a community that spreads pure positivity. Whether I go to the forum, people’s section, green room, and even old literary portfolios, I see a profound nurturing of creativity and connection.

YWS is a very inclusive and welcoming community, which makes every part of it equally wonderful.


S: Aw, that's sweet. Now, real quick before I end this interview: Do you have any shout outs to make or anything to say in general?

K: Shoutout to @Magebird for being herself, @Shadeflame for being an incredible friend, @StellaThomas for her patience as I flood her with tons of questions, and @ alliyah because her poems are amazing.

S: Wonderful! That's it for the interview now. Congratulations once again on featured member! :)

K: Thank you so much, Libs! It was a nice chat :D

If you still haven’t congratulated Katteex, then make sure to do so by dropping of a comment in the thread or her wall!





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Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:49 am
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THIS MONTH IN HISTORY: JUNE
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written by alliyah < PM: >

It's been a little bit since I've done an article for my "this month in history" column, so let's jump into the time machine and take a look at what was happening on YWS 2, 5, and 10 years ago.

TWO YEARS AGO: YWS June 2018

Featured Members
Two years ago YWS featured two outstanding members; we featured @elysian in the first half of the month and @shaniac in the second half. Some of you might remember elysian by her old username "lylas" she's not as active these days but has written quite a bit of poetry and even started a couple of novels on the site. shaniac also hasn't been active for a while but was also an avid writer spending time in the Role-Play Realm and lit center, always bringing their great sense of humor. Here's both of their Featured Member Squills interviews: Elysian Featured Member and Shaniac Featured Member .

Great Tortoise Race
June featured The Great Tortoise Race of 2018 . I'm not sure if it was the first of its kind, but users were extra encouraged to complete Team Tortoise (ie. reviewing on piece every day of the month) for the month of June. Interestingly enough, I believe that shaniac was actually the only user to win this badge - I'm not sure is this is true of all times or not, but that's a pretty neat accomplishment!

FIVE YEARS AGO: YWS June 2015

Featured Members
You just may have heard of our featured members from June 2015 - they were the wonderful @Que and the fabulous @Lavvie! Their names should ring some bells, as they're both still very active on the site and have both actually served on the mod team. Que used to go by "Falconer" and you'll often spot her with a lovely puffin avatar. Both of these users can't really be put into a literary box since they've tackled both prose and poetry with success and each also have achieved their second blue review star which is a feat not many can bost of.

Here's Querencia's Squills Featured Member Interview , though I was not able to find Lavvie's in the achives. Lavvie if it's true that you didn't actually have a Squills Featured Member Interview and feel like you missed out, let me know! We could do a late interview. :) In the meantime readers, I would encourage you check out Lavvie's old Squills column "Quibbles" it's an interesting little informative column on all things writing and grammar from antecedents to semi-colons.

2015 Major Events
@Nate posted a helpful little summary of things that happened during each month of 2015, I'm going to go ahead and just quote his entry on June from here

"@Lava posted Translature - Vol I, a YWS-lit magazine showcasing the many languages that YWSers speak, @Blues reminded all of us about NaNoWriMo with Camp NaNo: Post your plots!, @Tenyo began The Last Man Standing: Round II, and @Rydia managed The Big Review."

Featured Works
In June 2015, one of the works that would end up in the top 100 lit spotlight of all time list was posted. @Morrigan's poem Family History Repeats Itself ended up with over 40 likes and even a review from Nate!

TEN YEARS AGO: YWS June 2010

Featured Member
Ten years ago our Featured Member for most of June was @BondGirl007. While I don't think I ever had a chance to meet this user, according to their profile they were heavily involved in Storybooks and Reviewing, and wrote a nice amount of short stories during their time on the site.

Featured Works
I took a look over at the past featured works, and it looks like during June 2010 Let me go by @eldEr was fairly popular.

Moderating
I read in a Squills article while searching for interesting June 2010 facts that @Elinor became a Junior Moderator in June of 2010. She's now the crew leader for Storybook Crew and one of the site's dark green Global Moderators. Happy ten-year modversary Elinor!

Other Statistics
Nate also posted a June Statistics post in 2010, that I had to do a doulbe-take at! Apparently in June 2010 YWS had 3,948 Reviews Written! To give some perspective on how giant that number is, in June of 2019 we had 689 Reviews, and in April (our best reviewing month of the year so far) we had 1103 Reviews. Other interesting things to note; 37.74% of users used Internet Explorer for their Internet Browser in 2010 and London, Sydney, and Brisbane were the top three cities using YWS.

That's all for this month in history! If you have any memories from June 2018, 2015, 2010 I'd love to hear them! And if you have any highlights you want to make sure are included in my July edition send a note over to my Author's Page . Thanks for taking a trip down memory lane with me!





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Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:50 am
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POP UP QUESTION: SONGS
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written by EternalRain < PM: >

This week’s Pop Up Question was actually inspired by my recent falling in love of a new song, Saying Goodbye by JS Ondara. It was one of those songs where I heard it and I just fell in love instantly! A few days after I heard this song for the first time, I was browsing through my social media and got reminded by the glorious-ness of Jack Johnson’s Upside Down (from Curious George) . Upside Down just captures pure joy and nostalgia for me! Inspired by this, I decided to ask a few members around the site what song they’ve been enjoying lately. In their responses, I have linked the Youtube video of their song, so give it a listen if you’re looking for a new tune!

I had the pleasure of asking @Shadeflame, @WaterSpout, and @starlitmind this week’s pop up question!

Squills: What’s a song you’ve been enjoying lately, and why?

Shadeflame: Hi EternalRain!

A song that I've been listening to lately is Tightrope , from The Greatest Showman. I like it because it has a really nice melody, and is pretty romantic, which I love. I'm a sucker for those kind of things. xD
It also talks about taking risks in life and stepping out of your comfort zone. So, yeah. That's probably why I like it so much.


WaterSpout: Well, to answer your question, I've recently been listening(and enjoying) We Rise by Everen Maxwell.
Why?
Because 1)I like EDM, 2)the violin part is beautiful, and 3)because it sparks my emotions, mainly hope and that I-can-take-on-the-world feeling I get from it.
That is all.


StarlitMind: A piece that I've been enjoying lately is The Swan , composed by Saint-Saëns. It's so beautiful and expressive. The harmonies might seem simple, but if you break down the piece, you can truly enjoy the chords, arpeggios, and cadences. It's also a nice piece to listen to while getting some work done!


I loved seeing all the varied answers from these YWSers! Music can be a very powerful thing and can have different meaning for everyone. If you’re looking for some new songs to listen to, you can check out the Music Recommendations club. It has something in practically any genre! You can also feel free to share a song you’re enjoying (or is relevant to you) on your wall with the #songoftheday hashtag.

A big thanks to Shadeflame, WaterSpout, and StarlitMind for sharing with us their songs! It was so fun getting to listen to everyone’s pick, and understand a little why they like it so much.

Stay tuned for another Pop Up Question.





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Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:50 am
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BITS AND WORDS: SHOWS ABOUT HISTORY
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written by EditorAndPerks < PM: >

Hello again! As an introduction to this article, I must say that I absolutely love creations using historical storylines or referencing actual historical events. For some reason, I enjoy certain aspects or adaptations of previous stories or novels over others, and I never seem to be able to decide what opinion I will have until I start reading/watching content.

To continue from that starting piece, I have watched two seasons of the NBC show Timeless, which was Sci-Fi with History bits because: (spoiler) Time Travel. (Of course.) The main characters include a book-smart historian who is an awesome and smart, a Texas soldier who definitely fills the role of "dumb pretty boy," and a Black scientist and pilot who is hilarious, and one of few people that can actually drive the time machine.

I'm not out to reveal too many plot secrets or anything - all of the above information is explained in like ten minutes of the first episode, so please do not worry about spoilers. I just want to spend a while gesturing in my room at various events and the idea that these characters kept traveling through time and meeting with historical figures, both marvelous and infamous ones. I might be just a bit jealous from watching these episodes.

I've really come to enjoy Timeless, even though I'm streaming it a while after had been on air. And there were definitely weird moments or things that seemed totally out of place, but I dunno, these characters found a place in my heart, especially Lucy, who is the aforementioned historian who is a true history geek and I relate to her a bit too much. This is coming from a biology major, so that might not make sense, but I understand being fascinated with history.

Another history show that had turned into an absolute guilty pleasure for me was Reign. Yes, the one where the characters were mostly dumb teenagers who wore ridiculously glamorous dresses and had beautiful scenery all around them. I so want to find the costume designer on set and just see all of the outfits because they were stunning to my eyes. Stunning, I tell you. Besides that, there were absolutely pretty terrible historical inaccuracies that honestly kind of amused me rather than aggravated me.

I think the enjoyable aspect I get from watching history tv shows comes from the fact that I've always wondered what certain scenes would have appeared, or could even have occurred. Plus, i just appreciate all of the creative influence that history can provide me, even how many years afterwards.





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Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:51 am
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WRITING PROMPTS: SUMMER!
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written by EternalRain < PM: >

Hello! I’ve decided to create another round of writing prompts which hopefully bring inspiration to a new poem, a short story, or what should happen next in your novel or script. If you write a poem or a very short story and you’d like it to be featured in Squills, send me a PM with your writing!

Because summer is approaching (in many parts of the world) and school is ending (or has ended) for many folks, I decided to harness the summer theme in this week’s writing prompts!

Prompt 1: First Sentence Prompt


Use this sentence as the first sentence of your story. Or, you can break it up and use it as the first line(s) of your poem!

The sun shined almost too bright today.


Prompt 2: Picture Prompt


Use this picture to inspire a poem or short story. (This picture is a stock photo- hence, the watermark- but I thought it was so interesting!)

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Prompt 3: Three Words


A “three words” prompt is a writing prompt where you write a poem or short story based off the given three words. The three words must be present inside your work. You can get creative!

crickets, flip-flops, butterfly





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Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:52 am
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SHAMELESS PLUGS
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written by SquillsBot < PM: >

We love to run articles and questions, but we also love to advertise for you. Let people know about your new blog, a poem or story you’re looking for reviews on, or a forum thread you’d like more traffic on through Squills’ Shameless Plugs. PM @SquillsBot with the exact formatting of your advertisement, contained in the following code.

Code: Select all
Place advertisement here. Make sure you include a title!

And now for this week's Shameless Plugs!


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YWS Advertising Post


Need more advertisements in your life?
Or maybe you just want to keep up with the latest events on YWS?

Join the YWS Advertising Post so you don't miss any of the upcoming events and feel free to share your own news too!

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Want to have fun and exercise your abilities as a poet? Consider joining this challenge. Each round will have a random set of parameters, including things like theme, rhyme scheme, format, etc. There are no eliminations and anyone is free to join or leave at any time. I think everyone will find something exciting for them!

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Speak Your Truth, Even If Your Voice Shakes.

submit your piece to Survivor Magazine.


Survivor, previously known as Queer as in F*** You, is a digitally and physically produced zine featuring multiple creators per volume, centering on all things feminist, queer, punk, social justice, activist, and sex positive. It is edited by Oliver Kamber (@Bullet), and E.M Anderson (@BluesClues).

Publication of Survivor's third issue is slated for June 16, 2020. Deadline for submissions is June 14, 2020.

Check out submission guidelines here and email your submission to survivorzine.submissions@gmail.com.....!


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Welcome to the Universe



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!


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The Great Tortoise Race


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This June if you Review at least once every day you are eligible for earning The Great Tortoise Race badge! Find more information here .



That's all folks~ Now send us yours.





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Mon Jun 08, 2020 6:58 am
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SUBSCRIBERS
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written by SquillsBot < PM: >

Find an enspoiler-ed a list of our subscribers!
Spoiler! :

@SquillsBot@Carina@ShadowVyper@ArcticMonkey@Hannah@KingLucifer@Caesar@veeren@megsug@StoneHeart@Skydreamer@Love@Aley@Rydia@Alpha@skorlir@KnightTeen • @ChildOfNowhere • @neko@Aquila90@DudeMcGuy@kayfortnight@Cole@Blackwood@manisha • @fortis • @Gardevite@cgirl1118@KittyCatMeow@Willard@ChocoCookie@carbonCore@Auxiira@Blues@Paracosm@Sparkle@FireFox@Dakushau@deleted5@wizkid515@yubbies21@PiesAreSquared@FatCowsSis@CelticaNoir@BenFranks@TimmyJake@whitewolfpuppy@WallFlower@Magenta@BrittanyNicole@GoldFlame@Messenger@ThereseCricket@TriSARAHtops@Ventomology@Evander@WillowPaw1@Laure@TakeThatYouFiend • @RoseAndThorn • @Cheetah@NicoleBri@Pompadour@Zontafer@QueenOfWords@Crimsona@vluvswriting@GreenTulip@Audy@EllaBliss@eldEr@Deanie@lostthought@CesareBorgia • @Omnom • @Morrigan@AfterTheStorm • @AstralHunter • @Arcticus • @Wolfical • @Pamplemousse@Sassafras@gia2505@ExOmelas@SkyeWalker@Noelle@elysian@TinkerTwaggy@kingofeli@SpiritedWolfe@malachitear@GeeLyria@AdmiralKat@Clickduncake • @yellow • @Seraphinaxx@Pretzelstick@WritingWolf@EternalRain@Tuesday@Dragongirl@JKHatt@Lucia@donizback •@Querencia • @BlueSunset@artybirdy@IncohesiveScribbles@cleverclogs@MLanders@ClackFlip@PickledChrissy@racket@Lorelie@Gravity@BluesClues • @hermione315@Steggy@willachilles@tintomara138@AmatuerWritings@TheLittlePrince@TheForgottenKing@Shoneja123 • @Magebird • @Mea@klennon14@fandomsNmusic@Meerkat@HolographicLadybug@Sevro@DragonWriter22@RippleGylf@amelie@Morrigun@Megrim@Kazumi@inktopus@OreosAreLife@Saruka@rosette@PastelSlushie@Strident@darklady@Jashael@TheBlueCat • @Thundahguy • @ZeldaIsSheik • @Lives4Christ24@manilla@Danni88@Elinor@fishsashimi@TheWeirdoFromBeyond@shaniac@neptune@Storybraniac@WritingPrincess • @Traves • @JosephHGeorge@Amabilia@Fantascifi66@paperforest@alliyah • @Liberty • @Dossereana • @AtlasW • @EverLight@AlyTheBookworm@mckaylaam@JesseWrites

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!








Once you have people's attention, you have a greater responsibility to tell them something of value.
— Tobias Forge (Ghost B.C.)