Submission Guidelines

Loving only well-written, well-edited articles

Photo created by author in Canva using photo from silviarita at Pixabay

Hi!! Thank you for being here!

First — a bit about why this pub with this theme. What’s with “Hope, Healing and Humour?”

Well, it starts with growing up in an abusive, frightening environment that laid the groundwork for a tumultuous adult life, too.

A Story of Suffering…A Quest for Happiness

Throughout the decades of turbulence and crises, I was on a quest for happiness. I ached for healing. And I didn’t have much hope.

In fact, there were times I had no hope at all. I’d been struggling with a debilitating, painful physical illness for a long time. I couldn’t take the suffering anymore.

I made plans to let go of this life. I figured my family would be better off not having to watch me suffer. They could stop wondering which day they’d come home and find me dead.

Anyway, making a long, ugly story short, eventually I dug myself out of that hole. My spiritual journey helped, along with my sense of humour, which managed to keep poking its head up even when things were pretty dark. Even when I was a frightened kid in a scary home, I used humour to help me cope.

My whole life has been a journey of hope and healing, punctuated by doses of humour that hid my pain, lightened my load, and gave me a bit of perspective in some of the darkest of times.

I know how it feels to suffer. And I know it feels when that suffering stops. It is an honour and a privilege to be able to participate in making that happen.

I love being able to share what I’ve learned, or perhaps a few kind words or a little encouragement or validation. If there’s something I can say or do to make that journey a little easier for someone else, I’m all in. And that includes helping you share your stories, insights, wisdom and life experiences to support others in their journeys of angst and overcoming and getting through another day.

Even if it means something as simple (and powerful) as putting a smile on a face or making someone crack up and laugh like a crazy person for a minute or two. Sometimes that’s all we need to lift our spirits, renew a sense of hope, and make us think maybe things are gonna be okay after all. ’Cause you can live a long time on just a little bit of hope, you know.

If you’ve got stories like these, they can find a home here.

Okay, here’s where I have to get all businessy and put on my businessy hat. It’s SO not my forte but here we go.

Who Can Submit?

I accept well-written, well-edited submissions.

I don’t generally make any changes to submissions that I publish, apart from an occasional fix of a typo or something like that. If your article needs more than a light tidy, I will likely offer a gentle note about what might be helpful. You can always run the Hoover over it, tickle it with a feather duster, get a soft cloth and polish it — whatever it needs to put it in its best light — and try again.

Supporting Our Community

And this is extra important: You must share the work of at least one other writer. At Hope, Healing and Humour, we’re about supporting and helping each other.

Also — please clap for other articles on this pub. Highlight! And leave comments; those are the best for feeding Mr Algorithm. We all know what a hungry beast he is.

Let’s engage with each other, have conversations. This is not a post-and-run kinda joint! And that’s a great policy for Medium in general, not just here at Hope, Healing and Humour.

Which reminds me … you will be tagged in a weekly newsletter so you don’t miss any “invitations” (otherwise known elsewhere on Medium as “prompts”) or contests or other goodies that might be relevant, interesting, or just plain FUN for you. Plus … we’re a “Pub Family.” We’re building a community that nurtures and supports each other and reads the work of our fellow writers. It’s not cool to post and run. Right? Glad you agree.

What Kind of Content?

It has to fit one or more of the themes of hope, healing, and humour. Hmm. Bet you weren’t expecting that.

Only positive, uplifting, supportive content, please. If you need to dive into the past to talk about a challenge you were having, that’s great just as long as the point of the story is that you’ve turned it around.

Or that you’re at least working on it, that you believe you’ll get there, that you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not the train coming at you — anything that leaves readers feeling encouraged and believing things’ll get better for them, too.

In fact, those kinds of stories are welcome and helpful and a main part of why I’ve created this pub. If people arrive here and they’re struggling, I want them to feel inspired by the time they wander off to some other part of the internet — hopefully, whistling a happy tune and feeling better for having been here.

AI-Generated??

AI-generated pieces will not be accepted. They have a certain feel about them and if I suspect that your device wrote them for you — or that you just changed it enough to hope I won’t notice — I’ll run them through a few AI detectors.

This is a writing platform. This publication is about humans sharing their life experiences, learning, insights and hearts with other humans. It’s about people lifting other people and helping them on their journeys. Save your AI playtime for other venues.

Drafts or Published?

Draft submissions only, please.

This is so I can make any necessary changes before publishing, such as when people forget to share the work of at least one other writer, or when they’ve made other little errors that need correcting.

Also, submissions appear in the order they were published, so if you published something in the past (even if it’s only several hours), it shows up way down the list on HHH’s timeline and if there are others after you, yours will be missed by many people.

It benefits you to submit only a draft, and allows me to fix what needs fixin’ (not that I do much of that) so please do not submit published work.

Photos

For the best presentation of your article, here’s what makes Medium all warm and fuzzy and maybe even feel like it’s had too much champagne:

Be sure you credit your photos
Put a description in Alt Text. When you click on the photo, you will see this pop up. Click on it and describe the photo briefly for people who are visually impaired.

Links

You’re welcome to put two or three links at the bottom, e.g. an opt-in link, your website, or perhaps a couple of links to your other work. Just be sure that somewhere in your submission, you’ve also shared at least one piece by another writer.

Length

I prefer anything up to about 7–8 minutes, but if it’s a compelling story that needs to take 10 or 12 minutes for you to share it properly, go for it. I’m the queen of those, so I get it!

Questions Not Answered Above?

Ask me in the comments.

Interested in Joining?

If you’d like to be considered for submissions:

Follow me
Follow this pub
Let me know in the comments
Tell me your Medium ID
I’ll stroll on over to your neck of the woods and take a peek at your work and see we’re a good fit.

Now, go and have a splendiferous day!