I Have Been Illuminated
How A Community Shines Light Upon Us
First of all: This article is my contribution and testimony to a great community. It does not require any claps, responses or other form of direct support.
I write these lines as a personal Thank You message to the Illumination community and its members, as well as Dr Mehmet Yildiz, its founder and godfather.
If you want to thrive, you need an outlet
On Medium, everyone can publish their articles for free. But newcomers like me will soon learn that next to nobody will find your articles in this endless stream of newly published works.
The best way to increase your reach is to join a publication. There are many publications active on Medium, some bigger, some smaller.
The Startup for example focuses on business and entrepreneurship. They currently have way over 600,000 followers.
Illumination is fairly new. I just recently learned that it’s only about one month old. But thanks to its diverse and active community, as well as the dedication with which Dr Mehmet Yildiz works to help its writers, it is growing incredibly fast.
Within this short time span, it reached more than 1000 followers. Illumination reaches more than 100 new followers per day. Every writer knows how hard it is to actually get your words out.
We’re not marketers after all.
Illumination so far has helped me incredibly in being seen. Within just hours, one of my published articles was even seen by Medium curators and subsequently curated for its quality!
Had I written this without any publication to back me up,
my chances would have been next to none.
Illumination is meant for everyone
What’s even more dazzling, Illumination is free of any bias or niches. If you can think it, you can write it.
While The Startup I mentioned earlier is a great source for big exposure, they only care about entrepreneurship. Not all of us are entrepreneurs. But all of us are passionate writers.
With Illumination, I found a publisher who’d not only accept all my works for what they are, but who’d also go to great lengths to share these works with the world.
Show me one place that offers you free advertising and marketing — well, apart from Illumination.
Illumination is full of diverse and creative minds
We now have more than 200 writers, all coming from different backgrounds. We have for example Salam Khan, an Australian who welcomed me first and writes very passionate about interesting topics, from Haikus and Poems to more dedicated articles, dealing with philosophy and emotions.
Another person I’m impressed with is Chris Hedges 🦄, she’s not only a dedicated writer and lovely person to chat with, but also deeply dedicated to shining light upon us writers, so that we reach more people with our words. She’s using her own magic to let that happen. Furthermore, I’ve never before come into contact with someone from the LGBTQ community.
While I’ve never been against any of that (everyone should live their life however they see fit. Be and let be.) I know that not all of the world is as open and accepting in this matter. Which is why her confidence and openness struck me. If courage and self-confidence are things you are missing in your life, talk to Chris. She can teach you how to spread your wings.
René Junge is, just like me, a German, but at the same time a writer who can churn out quality articles and books in record time. Seriously, I call myself a full-time writer, but what he spits out in a day is more than I manage in a week. He figured it all out. If you want to learn about writing as a profession, hit him up.
I never thought much about poetry, but Gurpreet Dhariwal has shown me the beauty and inspiration of carefully selected words. So far, I loved all her works. She’s putting her soul into each poem she writes, and that shows.
The same goes for Dipti Pande who can make words dance on your screen in a symphony of emotions. It has taught me that poetry is far from dead. It still has potential to shine and inspire.
I can say the same about Simran Kankas, who not only shares her poetry with us on Illumination, but also leads The Spiritual Tree, where you can dip your soul into an ocean of spiritual beauty. When all hope is lost, visit the spiritual tree and let it lift you back up.
With more than 200 writers, I’ve not done it justice here. But I’ve only been a part of this for about a week now and there’s just so much I still haven’t seen yet. I hope that I’ll have enough time to learn about our other members in the coming weeks and months.
If you are starting out, Illumination is the best place
You meet awesome people from all over the world. This publication is growing at incredible speed. We all are helping and supporting each other as much as we can.
If you feel alone in your writing, join this community and enjoy solidarity like never before.
Don’t be shy.
Be illuminated.
Thank you all for your incredible support and positive attitude. I’m still overwhelmed by all of this and need time to get it all under my hat, with work and all that. But I’m looking forward to be more engaging and supportive with all of you.
Whatever you do, keep writing!
Kevin is an editor and writer for the ILLUMINATION publication. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
