Writing Gooder

For many of you YWS’ers, the name Bobo strikes awe, admiration, and even aspiration.  To most of you, however, it probably just strikes you as odd and unfamiliar. I invite you, however, you cast your eyes upon the top of the YWS home page, where you will see a logo much like this one:

Now, you have identified the truth that lies behind the name of Bobo.  You see, in the year 2005, Nate opened the YWS store on Cafepress.com, and needed logos for the Young Writers Society so he could make money off of it (he claims it all went to keeping YWS alive, but we all know that in 2006, the site went down anyways, probably because he was keeping the money for himself… just kidding, Nate!).  Anyways, to make a long, boring story a short, boring story, I designed the above logo (as well as another one that is found in the store), and since then it has become the standard logo for the Young Writers Society.  I also created several templates for the site, although the only one remaining now is the “Chimped Out” skin—the only template, ironically, that I never fully completed.  Hence the lack of chimps on the Chimped Out skin! (more…)

Nate, I confess, this started all because I wanted to prank you. I saw that one thread in the mod forum (you know the one) and instead of being a nice human being and comforting you, I had the craziest urge to give you the biggest prank that I think YWS has ever seen. The plan? To fill up your PM box with thank you notes from all of YWS. 

Consider yourself lucky that I talked with Meshugenah first. She dissuaded me from this idea and we came up with another plan, a better plan. We would PM all the active members from YWS that we could grab and tell them to write a thank you note and send it to me, so that way, I would get stuck with all the thank you notes. And then we would show it to you, at once, so we could completely overwhelm you. A good prank? Maybe. We code named it “Project Awesome.” 

But it’s not completely my fault, honest. It’s the whole site’s fault. Yes, I had a crazy idea, but the idea caught on fire. Several people, when they first got my PM, demanded to help me and made sure I never slacked off. In the first five days, I received nearly a hundred replies and thank you notes for you. And not just from established members either–I was astonished how many wonderful notes that I got from newbies, who I thought would simply ignore my PM. Boy, was I wrong. 

Nate, nobody once said this was a terrible idea. Often for the topic of the PM they sent me back, they changed it to, “Great idea!” Or, if they didn’t do this, they simply told me, “Great idea!” in the actual private message. As Layleun put it, “When Project Awesome was launched I literally yelped with joy and danced around the room because Snoink finally thought of a way we could help you!” 

Nate, we all think you’re awesome. And we want to prove it to you. 

I asked everybody to choose their favorite color–that is why this is a whole rainbow of colors. Everybody is listed in alphabetical order because we are all YWS members, no matter what color we sport in the actual forums. 

Here is what we have to say:

Project Awesome

I haven’t been posting at all for the past two weeks as I’ve been concentrating on getting the Young Writers Literary Journal done.  And, now it is!

http://stores.lulu.com/yws

Check it out.

 

Web sites targeted to young writers are a rare breed.  I’ve never completely understood why as those who write spend a lot of time on the computer by definition (at least by the modern definition).  Plus, it’s hard to find someone who is 14 years old and doesn’t like writing a story.  They may not do it in their spare time, but it’s hardly ever viewed as a chore.

Unfortunately, such Web sites are becoming rarer with the recent announcement that Abysnthe Muse will be effectively going off-line come December 28th.  The announcement and my thoughts after the jump.

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The Young Writers Society has only been on its own server for six weeks now, and already we’re straining it!  We’re very good on RAM (got two gigabytes of it), but not so good on CPU processing.  Right now, the CPU is trying to process over two requests per second, when a good number is under 1.  So what happens is a site slowdown during busy periods.

For now, I’m not concerned.  A little slowdown is tolerable, and besides, activity will start dropping once Thanksgiving in the United States comes around.  December will probably see a drastic drop, with the last week of December being the slowest week of the year.  But in January or in February, I will have to upgrade the server.

Hopefully, by that time, the Young Writers Literary Journal will be selling well and I can pay for some upgrades without dipping once again into my pocket!

The Young Writers Society has two newsletters now. The first is sent out monthly to anyone who has registered as a member on the main site. The second will be sent out weekly and you have to subscribe to it through the blog here. The first has site announcements; the second has the schedule for the radio program and links to interesting blog posts you may have missed.To subscribe to the second list, you can either use the newsletter form on the sidebar, or just hit the jump.

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It’s October first, which to most normal people mean it’s the beginning of the month. Of course, we all know better. That means it’s time to sign up for NaNoWriMo! They’re resetting the site tonight, which means you can sign up and fill in all the lovely things about your NaNoNoWriMo novel for this year, and wander on the forums making friends.

So, don’t forget to sign up, join the fun, and tell us who you are! I’m sure someone (it might end up being me XD) will start a thread for all YWSers to show up in, say hi, then leave.

One month! Then the horror (joy?) begins.

Starting up a separate blog newsletter, to which you can subscribe in the sidebar.  Simply put in your e-mail, then confirm that you do indeed want the newsletter.

The general YWS newsletter will still go out from to time, however I plan to use the blog newsletter on a weekly basis.  Along with some featured blog posts, I’ll also be using to send the schedule of the radio program.  So if you want to stay on top of what will be discussed and what time the program will air, then subscribe away!

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Starting an internet radio station for the Young Writers Society has been my pet, top-secret project over the last month.  I finally went ahead with it today, and we had our pilot program at 8:30 pm EST.  By all measures, it was a smashing success!  Over 70 listeners, and I only gave 30 minutes notice!

In the future, we will do old time radio shows, poetry jams, news & announcements, shoutouts, etc.  Expect it to be coming at you once a week on Sundays!

For the next one, see the announcement over at the main site.

To listen to the pilot, click here.

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The header was done using the Stripe Generator script found at:

http://www.stripegenerator.com/

And the rounded corners of the sidebar uses absolutely no images whatsoever thanks to:

http://www.spiffycorners.com/

Whatever is left is completely me!