Your July Challenge; Day 3

Just Who Will You Invite to Your Dinner?

A warm welcome to new ILLUMINATION writers, the Daily Tip, and some fantastic writing prompts

In June I introduced writers just recently added to the ILLUMINATION Publication by featuring a few of their stories each day. It was a great way to find some excellent writing and to get to know those newly added to the ranks.

The thing is, those features took a bit of time to produce, and I found myself slipping behind on writing and responding with everyone else.

So, for July, I am taking a slightly different approach. I still want to welcome the new writers…

Welcome New Writers!

But instead of sifting through your stories myself, I am going to offer you a chance to write a new story that responds to one of the awesome writing prompts that I will list later in this piece. When you do, be sure to tag me Timothy Key and say that you are a new writer responding to one of the prompts.

I will then include that in an upcoming “Your July Challenge” piece.

The onus is not only on you however, I will be attempting to respond to one challenge or prompt for each day as well. I wouldn’t want to ask you to do something I wouldn’t be willing to do.

If you aren’t new to ILLUMINATION, we have some great stuff for you in this daily challenge bulletin as well.

Check out our Daily Tip. Even if you are an old pro, there should be something in here that makes you say, “Oh, I didn’t know that”. So, keep checking back daily for the tips and to get challenged and inspired to write your best stuff!

The Daily Tip!

Link your Medium account to Twitter! Did you know that anyone that clicks on a story link from Twitter can read your story for free, even if they aren’t a member on Medium?

That right there is reason enough to create a Twitter account if you don’t have one, and to link it to your Medium account if you do. It is just one more way to get some additional eyes on your work.

And it works the other way too. Want your Medium followers to also follow you on Twitter? All you need to do is turn the feature on in your profile settings:

When you do, the little Twitter bird icon will appear on your profile like this:

Then, anyone on Medium can go directly to your Twitter account and follow you there.

Regardless of how long you have been with the publication, be it a minute, or since day one, we have a whole team of editors and other writers that are ready to support you and promote your work.

All any of us ask in return, is that you do the same.

Create your writer bio

One of the best ways we can get to know you is for you to provide a writer’s bio. When you do, Dr Mehmet Yildiz will highlight it in his daily bulletin and it will be added to our collection of writer bios. Check out the rest here:

Daily distribution list

Another fantastic way to get engaged with other writers on the ILLUMINATION publication is by checking out @mehmetTK ‘s daily distribution list. In it he includes all of the stories in the last 24 hours. When you write something and publish on ILLUMINATION your article will appear there too!

Here is a link to the bulletin:

Let’s Connect

If you want to connect with me or any of the editors or writers, please consider joining the Illumination Slack workgroup. You can request an invitation to Slack by contacting @mehmetTK from this link. Please type “Request for Slack” on the heading as Dr. Yildiz has many other requests from this link.

I am always willing to answer questions and provide information for anyone. The other editors and writers are as well. Slack is the best way to interact if you have questions.

If you need some tips to get up and running on Slack, this article is a good starting point:

Curation Stars

The environment of encouragement and support can be substantiated just by looking at the many writers that are seeing their stories get traction in the way of being curated by Medium. Here is a great article giving tips and pointers, as well as links to curated stories of Illumination writers:

Today’s Challenge and Response

Today I took on B. A. Cumberlidge.‘s challenge to share whom we would invite to dinner if we could choose anyone, living or dead. I (of course) warped his time travel concept just a little bit to align my guests’ arrival when we are all at the same age. Read Brian’s original post here:

And here is my response:

Upcoming Challenges

In the coming days I will be tackling each of these challenges, and I am listing them here to help you get your writing pump primed as well:

First is another one from Dr Mehmet Yildiz that asks us to now review someone else’s response to the above challenge — sounds like a good one!

Then, there are two from B. A. Cumberlidge. that started last month. I did the one (above) and will take on this one soon:

Yesterday I put out a query on Slack and got one response for a prompt from Infiniti. I don’t think she has written to this prompt yet, but maybe she will, and I will feature it when she does. Meanwhile the idea is a good one: Something Weird Happened… It is on my list.

And I am actively looking for new challenges!

Rear view mirror

Here is a list of the challenges I have completed:

Dr Mehmet Yildiz challenged us to highlight five of our best articles:

Tree Langdon ♾️ asked us to create new words that should be in the dictionary:

I want to hear about your challenge or writing prompt!

If you are participating in or originating a challenge and you want to include it here for people to find, either respond to this article or hit me up on Slack (@timothykey).

List of New Writers

Each day I will tag one of the more recent groups of new writers added. I hope these stories provide a warm welcome and give some insight into many of the fantastic things happening every day at Illumination!

Tim Denning, Ovkourbali, Sarah K. Butterfield, Bhargavi Joshi, Sujani Hansanali, Ravi, Turkan M. Devrijova, Salma Alaa, Jett Howe, Nisha Karthigeyan, Ajita, Kevin Farran, Arjan, Erin M. Singh, Soul Dancer, B.C. Holmes, Roger Himes Esq., Leah Kent, Judy Millar, Alex R. Wendel, Danielle Taylor,

Illumination is all about being engaged and positive interaction. New writers, we can’t wait to hear what you have to say!

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Timothy Key spent over 26 years in the fire service as a firefighter/paramedic and various fire chief management roles. He firmly believes that bad managers destroy more than companies, and good managers create a passion that is contagious. Compassion, grace and gratitude drive the world; or at least they should. Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and join the mail list.