14 December 2022, Week 5: Reflecting on our year

My favourite thing about Young Writers Club is the fact that it is an inclusive and friendly space. I really appreciate the feeling of community that I get from the fortnightly sessions despite not being able to directly communicate with anyone besides Susan and Alicia. I do feel like my confidence has increased a lot over the past two years and the motto of 'there is no wrong way to write' has encouraged me to write the way I want to rather than the way I think I should. My favourite term in 2022 was Term 4 but my overall favourite terms were Terms 2 & 3 in 2021 (detective stories and fantasy). My suggestions for themes in future terms are: Science fiction would be an interesting genre to explore. Some specific ideas might be to have a futuristic setting focusing on a specific technology which exists in the future, or a story focusing on alien life. Fantasy is one that I think could be revisited. A different approach to the fantasy world might be either setting stories in an alternate version of the real world. Alternatively, we could do high fantasy. This seems similar to the fantasy we have already done, but the focus is different. Many stories from Term 3 had titles like 'Back to the South' or 'Lost in Zog' where a character's main focus was on returning to where they had come from, whereas in a completely high fantasy setting these characters would have different goals. I also have a suggestion for the website. It would be really helpful to me (and probably others as well) if you could type in italics or bold text. Either ctrl/command I or B could work or you could type with underscores/asterisks. Sorry if there is a way to do this and I just haven't found it yet! I have two miscellaneous suggestions. The first is that I think it would be fun for Susan and Alicia to do a story. I really enjoyed Term 2 2021 where they modelled and example story and would like to see that again. My last suggestion is that Young Writers Club should add the infrastructure for feedback. Like many other Young Writers, I select 'anyone' and I also try to read all the submissions. I think that being able to hear everyone's positive thoughts (and constructive criticism) could be really beneficial to the club. I'm not a programmer, but I think that there are a few ways this could be achieved. Anyone who enters an email has their writing linked. Potentially, feedback could be given to an author rather than to a specific piece of writing using this feature. As you need an email address to sign up for the club in the first place, no-one will miss out because they don't have one. Alternatively, you could create a 'feedback' task each week and if you wanted to you could just signpost who each piece of feedback was directed at. Or there could be a 'Give Feedback' function on each submission. Like with the writing submitted, Alicia and Susan could read it over before everyone saw it so that no-one could use this for harmful comments. Thanks so much to everyone who is a part of this club. I especially thank Susan and Alicia and anyone behind the scenes for facilitating it every fortnight!

I like the fortnightly sessions because of the wait, as it makes the YWC much more fun. I come back week after week because this club is so good, and because it helps me with writing skills. Also, I like reading all the others’ ideas. I am now much more confident in sharing my writing. My favourite term in 2022 was term 3, because I love making things up. One idea for future young writer’s club terms could be; a) each writer makes a world where there is a corrupt ruler, and the character is the only one who is brave enough to stand up to him/her. b) each writer writes about earth invading (or being invaded by) aliens, or a goldilocks planet.

I enjoyed the fortnightly sessions because you taught us how to write a story and we could do any spooky topic we liked. I kept coming back week after week because I was really looking forward to my finished story. I think I have improved because now I understand the different stages of writing a story. My favourite term was Term 4 ( I joined this term ) and I love spooky and creepy stories. Here are some of my ideas for future terms: Spooky season/ A night at a graveyard Your character decides to explore a graveyard and the things in it come back to life. You find a portal/ chest/ time capsule? You enter and ........ The bottom of the ocean Your character is a normal person ship wrecked/ pirate that was ship wrecked/ other thing that was swimming/ diving that either sinks/ swims to the bottom of the ocean. What they're about to discover could change their life. Happily never after Your character find a secret library somewhere an is attracted to something that when touched transports them to a fairytale. They must follow the course of their fairytale but they are allowed to make a twist.

I enjoyed the fortnightly sessions because it taught me how to write stories in a creative and humourous way. The reason why I came back every single week is because it made me feel like I had to finish what I started, because what is the use of an unfinished story? I think my writing abilities has improved a lot even though I had only started Writer's club this year! My favourite term was Term 4 because it was the term where I joined, but it was also extremely fun and suspenseful! Here are a few ideas of what topics we could do in the future: The secret room Your character finds a secret room/passageway/portal in their house. Out of their own curiousity they go in to explore the new world, but is instead transported to a dark room where they must conquer a monster/solve an impossible task/etc to escape. The future Your character is in 2080 and the age of AI has long begun. To save his/her world, they will have to travel back in time to 2023 to warn their ancestors of their harm.

I enjoy the fortnightly sessions because every other week that we aren't doing Young Writers Club I have something to look forward to from the next week. If I am sad or not having a good week, knowing that I have Young Writers Club coming soon makes me happy. The reason I come back week after week is because Young Writers Club makes me laugh and smile, it makes me feel happy that I get to write stories along side so many others that she the same passion of writing. My favourite term this year was Term 2, because it was my first term ever at Young Writers Club and I really enjoyed sending my character Henrietta back to the time of pirates. It was so much fun finding out how Young Writers Club works and where to post your writing so everyone can see (or so only Alicia and Susan can see). I have some ideas for future Young Writers Club terms: - Out of this World: Each young writer makes their character go on a mission, adventure or maybe they even live somewhere that is Out of this World - Tiny Life: Each young writer chooses a character that lives in a normal everyday object like a pencil case or schoolbag. - Bad Guy: Each young writer chooses one of their favourite books and rewrites it from the bad guys perspective