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!

This month our staff got a little Spooky with some Spooktober highlights! Watch out this November for a Special Birthday Squills Edition!

CREATIVE STAFF

1. REVMO RECAP
2. SPOOKTOBER AVATAR RECORD BREAK
3. ICY'S READING LOG: OCTOBER
4. POETRY WINDOWS: ‘A COAST-NIGHTMARE’ BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
5. THE GHOSTS OF SPOOKTOBER
6. GRAPHIC DESIGN - ADS AND VISUAL POETRY
7. SHAMELESS PLUGS
8. SUBSCRIBERS

REVMO RECAP

written by IcyFlame < PM: >

The YWS Annual Review Month (or RevMo for short) is now over and here at Squills we're going to give you a round up of how the whole event transpired.

We managed an amazing 710 reviews for the month with 86 YWSers taking part. We were only 40 reviews shy of the target, and that's no small number, so cheers all around please! We also got really close to clearing out the Green Room, and that had a massive impact on everyone posting their work to YWS.

Users had fun tackling challenges like the "In Depth Poetry Review Event," the Checklist Challenge, the Color Challenge, Team Tortoise, and even an end of month Autumn Themed Review Day!

COLOUR CHALLENGE

Lots of users took part in this year's Colour Challenge . These 10 reviewers completed at least 10 reviews and earned a cool dark turquoise username! @KaavyaK @DeadMenTe11N0Tales @chrysanthemumcentury @Cheerio @alliyah @EllieMae @khushi17bansal @SkyVibes

A further 9 users made it to 20+ reviews to earn a bronze username. Congrats to @theromanticchemist @Ley @vampricone6783 @Alwaysea @Que @Iggy @Kaia @IcyFlame @Moonlily

A super rare colour this month was up next. Only 2 reviewers earned a jazzy silver username with their 30+ reviews for the month and only 1 finished the month with this colour username! Well done @AkiraEliza

2 reviewers went even further, to earn an aptly named victory gold username by doing over 50 reviews last month! @candyhearts and @kaitlyn

TEAM TORTOISE

Team Tortoise last month saw an amazing group of reviewers undertaking the monumentous task of marching in with a review every single day. These users are @Que and @Moonlily Both reviewers earned the option of a dark cyan username by reviewing at least once per day every day in September. Great job!

(Congratulations to the users who made it very close to winning this too - thanks for your dedication!)

OTHER UPDATES & CHALLENGES

Following RevMo, we're closer than ever to clearing out the Green Room and with that of course comes the search for the Golden Goose and the potential rise of The Afterwatch for those who are involved in the Knights of the Green Room.

5 users also took part in the infamous Checklist Challenge . This year was a tough challenge, and nobody quite made it to completing the whole checklist!

Don't forget to also check out the RevMo Banner Contest and RevMo Template Challenge .

We at Squills are always sad when RevMo is over for another year and all the funky usernames go back to normal. But there are plenty more site events to get involved with before 2024 is over, and we'll be sure to keep you updated on them all!

SPOOKTOBER AVATAR RECORD BREAK

written by alliyah < PM: >

This Spooktober on YWS was filled with fun activities - engaging our writing, art, poetry, and more! An activity I was involved with was the Record Breaking Attempt which was an effort to break our previous record (from 2021) for most users with a holiday avatar at once! The previous record stood at 57 avatars, so 58 were needed to break the record.

Among the spooky avatar trends we saw fun Halloween characters like Samara (@RavenAkuma), spooky-James (@soundofmind), Adam (@dissonance), Nancy (@Lovestrike) and Taylor Swift (@theromanticchemist)! Okay may Taylor Swift isn't technically a spooky character - might depend on the album! We also saw trends of adding a classic animal from a previous avvie amidst some spooky details - like @BluesClues, @Snoink, @Que, @TheBlueCat, @Wolfi, and @Quillfeather chose to do. @BluesClues, myself and @Horisun chose to join the pumpkin patch. And we had a good selection of ghosts, cemeteries, witches, bats, leaves, and skeletons in the mix! There were also twice as many Lord of the Rings Characters than I was expecting... but hey! there are some scary elements in those books / movies. The record breaking 58th avatar was probably the spookiest of all... Scary Bunny a very spooky avatar introduced to YWS by @Arcticus a few years ago that at one time was featured in many YWSer avatars - but donned this Spooktober by @Hkumar.



We were ultimately successful in breaking the previous record! And overall a person could take away that Spooky-ness and Halloween-vibes can take many many various forms! The genre is vast and the avatar options even more various! Thank you to all who participated in this spooky fun!

ICY'S READING LOG: OCTOBER

written by IcyFlame< PM: >

Another month has ended, so I'm back again to give Squills an update of the books I've read in the month of October. I've actually met my goal of 60 books this month thanks to this accountability post every month, so anything from November onwards is a bonus!

(As always, if you're looking to read these books, please make sure to check the ratings and trigger warnings if you need to).

Books read this month: 4
Total book count: 60/60

1. Wild Love by Elsie Silver:
An easy one to get me into reading for the month. I love a small town romance and whilst this one wasn't my favourite, it wasn't bad either. I read it in about two days but it was exactly the palate cleanser I was after. 3 stars.

2. We Solve Murders by Richard Osman:
I love Osman's other cosy mystery series but the format was starting to mean I could predict the ending. This changed up the characters and setting, but with the characteristic tone that I've come to expect from his writing. Did I guess a lot of what was going on? Yes. But did I still enjoy it? Also yes. 4 stars.

3. The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber:
When I tell you, I sobbed at this book. The balance of magic, plot, character progression and just general feelings meant I read this in one sitting at the airport and was so desperate to get home so I could read the final book. One of the best books I've read this year. 5 stars.

4. A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber:
I had such high hopes after the last book, but the conclusion to the series felt unfortunately rushed. There were a lot of plot holes, a lot of things that weren't explained well enough and a really weird pace where I felt like nothing was happening, even by the time I was half way through the book. The characters saved it for me, but I just don't feel like it was done justice. 3 stars. Just.

POETRY WINDOWS: ‘A COAST-NIGHTMARE’ BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

written by Liminality< PM: >

Hello hello! In this special edition of Poetry Windows we’ll be reading a poem called ‘A Coast-Nightmare’. Let’s just say it’s a poem fit for Spooktober (with a 12+ rating under the YWS rating system). ‘A Coast-Nightmare’ was written by the poet Christina Rossetti, who was born in 1830 to an Italian family in London. She is considered a Victorian poet.

Before reading the rest of this article, give the poem a read by clicking this link. What do you imagine or visualize when reading it? How does the poem make you feel? [Content warnings for poem: discussion of death, the dead, and a mention of blood]

Imagery and Word Choice

The imagery in the first stanza stood out to me. Each line seems to unveil a new detail, gradually forming a detailed picture of a coast.

I have a friend in ghostland—
Early found, ah me, how early lost!—
Blood-red seaweeds drip along that coastland
By the strong sea wrenched and tossed.
In every creek there slopes a dead man’s islet,
And such an one in every bay;
All unripened in the unended twilight:
For there comes neither night nor day.

Words related to death (ghostland / lost / blood-red / dead man / twilight) are blended together with words that situate the poem in a coastal environment (coastland/ strong sea/ creek / islet/ bay). I like the way Rossetti makes the supernatural elements seem real by combining them with the more realistic imagery.

Unripe harvest there hath none to reap it
From the watery misty place;
Unripe vineyard there hath none to keep it
In unprofitable space.
Living flocks and herds are nowhere found there;
Only ghosts in flocks and shoals:
Indistinguished hazy ghosts surround there
Meteors whirling on their poles;
Indistinguished hazy ghosts abound there;
Troops, yea swarms, of dead men’s souls.—

Here there is an interesting pattern: there is a continued use of words with the ‘un-‘ prefix. In the first stanza, there was “All unripened in the unended twilight” and now “Unripe harvest” and “Unripe vineyard”. This to me makes the things being described sound eerie, unnatural and discordant, because having so many negating morphemes in one place is just so unusual (see also other ways there is negation happening: “hath none”, “neither nor”).

Souls are depicted using fluid imagery: “watery misty place”, “shoals” as opposed to “herds”, “whirling” “swarms”. So again, Rossetti takes something supernatural and gives it a physical appearance and shape with natural references.

Narrative

I thought the narrative of this poem was really ambiguous and open-ended. There are characters introduced in the first stanza but only returned to in the fourth and fifth stanzas.

In the first stanza, the speaker mentions a dead “friend”. In the third stanza, the speaker uses the word “you”, but I interpret the “you” as living since the speaker says “such a sight may you not see” with regards to the “ghastly freemen”.

What’s interesting is the following stanza, which begins:

How know you that your lover
Of death’s tideless waters stoops to drink?

It seems that the “you”s lover is the person haunting the speaker and so is not truly ‘dead’. But I’m undecided if this lover is the same person as the “friend” mentioned in the beginning, or if “you” was the friend all along. I feel it would make the poem more cohesive if the former. If the latter, then it seems like the “he” in the last stanzas is hunting down the speaker despite having no relation to them.

So if we take it that the “he” and the “friend” are the same person, the last stanza seems to hint at some kind of wrongdoing committed by the speaker against their friend. In the final stanza, the speaker “must keep” a secret, but the poem leaves a mystery as to what is weighing on the speaker’s mind.

Rhythm and Sound Devices

I noticed a lot of repetition on different levels in the poem. One pattern in the lines was to have a line containing 10 syllables precede a shorter one with 7 syllables. Nearly all of the second stanza seems to follow this pattern, and the last two lines of each of the following stanzas do as well.

Unripe harvest there hath none to reap it 10 A
From the watery misty place; 8 B
Unripe vineyard there hath none to keep it 10 A
In unprofitable space. 7 B
Living flocks and herds are nowhere found there; 10 C
Only ghosts in flocks and shoals: 7 D
Indistinguished hazy ghosts surround there 10 C
Meteors whirling on their poles; 7 D
Indistinguished hazy ghosts abound there; 10 C
Troops, yea swarms, of dead men’s souls.— 7 D

The 10-7 pattern being repeated so much in the second stanza makes me feel the tension of the atmosphere, as the speaker describes this desolate ‘Underworld’. Additionally, I’ve marked in the rhyme scheme for this poem, which is mostly regular and consistent throughout the poem, even when the meter is not. The rhymes also therefore come across as repetitive, with the CD pattern alternating three times within the stanza. On the level of words and phrases, “Indistinguished hazy ghosts surround there” and “Indistinguished hazy ghosts abound there” form another repetition, and it’s even more noticeable that the penultimate word to each line is also rhyming: “surround” and “abound”.

Now onto you!

What did you think of the poem? Share your reactions and opinions on the People’s Tab using the hashtag #PoetryWindows !

THE GHOSTS OF SPOOKTOBER

written by IcyFlame< PM: >

October was a bustling month on Young Writers Society, filled with exciting events and activities that made our site extra spooooky. This event was designed to celebrate the spooky season with a variety of writing challenges and activities. Here's a comprehensive look at everything that happened:

As the spooky season rolled around, the Spooky Fall Photography Contest invited participants to capture the essence of fall with their photography. The leaves changing colors, the crisp and chilly air, and pumpkins appearing on doorsteps were some of the themes that participants could explore in their photos.

Another exciting event was the Roleplay a Week challenge . This event aimed to get writers to engage in roleplay writing, with a target of 750 words per week. Writers could join by making a post in the designated thread to reserve their spot and log their RP posts and word count. An exclusive badge was up for grabs here!

Additionally, the FLASH Quote Horror Challenge encouraged users to choose from the horror themed prompts to dust off their writing ahead of Novembers NovMo.There were some great, and truly terrifying entries!

Other events included a quiz, picture prompt contest, some spooky tags and plenty more! If you want to check out everything that happened in Spooktober, you can look through the 2024 Forum .

Happy Spooktober!

GRAPHIC DESIGN - ADS AND VISUAL POETRY

written by Spearmint< PM: >

Welcome to the last article in this graphic design for YWS series! If you haven't read the first two articles, feel free to check them out here and here . This article will cover making ads for events, as well as an interview on visual poetry with the lovely poet @alliyah!

Examples

You've likely seen ads popping up on the People tab before every major YWS event! For example, here's the NovMo ad I made recently:



While it's true that it's usually mods who make ads for official YWS events, if you've ever wanted to run a workshop or host an event of your own, it's important to know how to get the word out. In my experience, a good ad has the title of the event in large font, the event's date, and some details in bullet points. This lets people know when it is and some of what to expect. Pretty graphics and animations are a bonus!

Here are two more examples:

Process

I usually use the poster template for ads!

Visual Poetry

Now for something a little different! You may have seen some visual poetry floating around YWS, with fancy graphics and animations. Recently, I had the chance to interview one such visual poet, alliyah, who's created visual poems that are simultaneously beautiful and meaningful.


alliyah: I usually like to ask the question - is adding a visual element going to add meaning, restrict meaning, or take away meaning.

When I'm making a "visual" poem there are two categories that it normally goes in: either it's a static poem with a fun background or doodle like most of the poems in my birds napo from 2020 or a "gif poem" with the visual element being portrayed through text moving. The most complicated of these have been The facts of orbiting and the quiet edge of summer . For those, the rate that the text moved was supposed to portray tone and story and the images played especially upon repetition that I hoped that the images brought attention to. These often have to be edited down to allow the visual element to bring out different elements more. The static poems usually lend themselves to an image, that is drawn or maybe something I've drawn previously, or maybe a background I find or compile.

So in other words, usually when I write a poem that becomes a static image - usually the poem comes first, and the visual later to enhance the words that have been written. Sometimes the images also take the place of words, and I'm always asking the question "is this adding meaning, or just something pretty on the side of the paper?" here's a good example of where the images I think add meaning to the poem, rather than simply being accessories to the words . When I'm writing a gif or video poem it's a little more back and forth in the editing process where sometimes the form writes the words as much as the theme does.

I also really like concrete poetry ... like chickens in the shapes of poems, and poems in the shapes of chickens, but let's save that for another interview! Adding scraps of woven paper, dried flowers, origami, and string are all visual elements I've enjoyed adding into my poetry - and I'm always trying to think of a new way to merge art and poetry together.


a: Being concise. In all aspects of life, I like to over-explain, and that includes my poetry. Have you read some of my list poems, oh boy! I never met a word-limit that I liked. But in visual poems I usually think they tend to lend themselves to shorter pieces so that for me is usually a challenge.


a: Sure! Three Tips!
1) Don't be afraid to re-write your poems! A lot of my visual poems began as much less interesting poems without visuals, but then I re-wrote it, hated the re-write, re-wrote it again, and again, and maybe by the 5th try came up with something that I thought was really a successful version of the poem. When creating any type of art, drafts ought to be part of the process, and in poetry too, I think you shouldn't be afraid to sketch and try several different methods to portraying your poem! ie. Trying writing it on your hand, and that becoming a photo, or writing it out of grass grains, or adding a needlepoint element, or letting it become a song, or adding a doodle on top. Poetry is limitless, but not if you stop at the first draft.

2) Remember... just like you don't have to be a published poet to engage in writing poetry, you don't have to be a trained or even "good" (whatever that means) artist to incorporate art into your poetry. Sometimes the best visual images are rugged half-sketches and taped in pencil drafts - that's okay! I consider the imperfections in my art to be part of my poetic voice and at the end of the day poetry doesn't need to be aesthetically pleasing in order to be meaningful - so don't be afraid to add in your ugliest beginning sketches, especially if you've got a creative idea!

3) Also a good tip for poetry is to start a "line journal" or "snippet folder" where you save every idea that "might" be poetic. This was kind of the inspiration for the thread "People Tab Posts that could be napo titles" came from. In the same vein of advice, if you're setting out to create visual poems, be sure you are collecting your doodles and sketches! A lot of my favorite image + poem pairings come from doodles that were not originally intended for the poem they ended up with, but that I had saved along the way until the right poem came up.

Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, alliyah! And thank you all for reading. While what was planned for this series is over, don't hesitate to PM me if you have graphic design questions or tips to share. Happy designing!

SHAMELESS PLUGS

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YOU'RE INVITED TO A BIRTHDAY BASH

Hello Dear Readers! You may have heard that YWS is celebrating a milestone birthday this year ... yes, that's right our beloved site is turning the corner of two decades. In celebration of this exciting occasion, the moderator team has been putting together a host of wonderful activities... to include contests (some with prizes!), a return of the YWS radio show, reunion activities to check in and re-awaken all your YWS nostalgia, and much more!

Grab your calendar and mark off November 13 - 20th for the YWS Birthday Celebration. More information will be out this week! Also since the theme is "Reunion" how neat would it be to invite all your YWS friends new and old to log-in and check-in! We'd love to see where people have ended up and what's new! Hope to see you at the party - I'll save you a slice of cake!



Poster is courtesy of @Spearmint.

SUBSCRIBERS

written by SquillsBot < PM: >

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