Your July Challenge; Day 12

The Best Time for Change is Always Right Now

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

For the month of July I am doing a daily feature that highlights ongoing writing challenges, provides a handy Daily Tip for all Medium writers, provides opportunity for collaboration on the ILLUMINATION Publication, and extends a warm and heartfelt welcome to new writers.

Welcome New Writers!

In June I highlighted existing stories of new writers, but this month I am offering writers, both new and not-so-new, a chance to:

Write your own new story!

This feature has a list of writing prompts, and we want to see your writing. Pen a response to any of the prompts, tag me Timothy Key and also mention if you happen to be one of the new writers on the publication.

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.

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.

Keep on reading to see how you can engage with others, but first:

The Daily Tip!

Use all five tags. The topic tags that you can add to the end of your article do more than summarize the topic(s) in your story. Medium uses these tags to categorize your writing, making it easier to index and find when someone searches for a topic.

Also, Medium uses the tags to place your article on topic-related fans, to deliver topic-specific content to readers based on their preferences as well as using the tags to allocate top writer status and as a consideration point for curation.

Tags are important. Don’t miss a chance to get your story read by neglecting to put in five tags!

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 Dr Mehmet Yildiz‘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 Dr Mehmet Yildiz 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:

Meet the Editors

And newly published, is our list of Editor bios! Get to know your editors and our backgrounds in this illuminating article:

Today’s Challenge and Response

Today I write in response to an idea generated by B. A. Cumberlidge. that asks when we can start tackling the important issues of our day:

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:

We keep seeing Holly Jahangiri‘s name in here, and this time she has collaborated with another notorious figure, Rasheed Hooda to offer this challenge to, “Highlight the work of four different Medium writers with stories they have posted on Medium that do not all appear in a single publication.”

Desiree Driesenaar has another one, which I think originated with Holly Jahangiri. It is to create an Abecedarian poem. I think the topic is open, although Desiree chose to use life perspective.

B. A. Cumberlidge. asks new writers to make some observations on what could be better about Illumination. The idea is to make positive suggestions rather than poke holes.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz has a new challenge; Create at least one testimonial for another writer whom you admire. He offers this one as an example:

I missed it earlier, but let’s rectify that. Zach J. Watson also offered up a challenge to create a testimonial for another writer, but in the spirit of election season, do it in a campaign ad format:

Holly Jahangiri tagged me in a poem chain that originated here with Martin Rushton:

And Holly’s response:

And I am actively looking for new challenges!

Rear view mirror

Here is a list of the challenges I have completed:

Week 1

In the first week of July I responded to challenges issued by Dr Mehmet Yildiz , Tree Langdon ♾️, B. A. Cumberlidge., Holly Jahangiri, Rasheed Hooda (a couple of them had two challenges to total seven). Read all of them in a Your July Challenge compilation article!

Week 2

Desiree Driesenaar, who wonders what verb you would be?

Sherry McGuinn tells us about the hole in her pants, and asks us if we are feeling the same way?

Infiniti suggested this great prompt: Something Weird Happened…

Rasheed Hooda challenged us to describe ourselves in an acronym of the first letters of our name:

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!

Hello Self!, Ashutosh Nandanwar, Anthony Smith Jnr, M. Roman, Nathan Standridge, Serena Steinfeld, Pamela Simmonds, Vuyo Ngcakani, Tarik Ata, Jameses Tech, Vivienne Teh, Morten Waage, Şafak Yıldız, Obinna Uruakpa, Matan Valdman, Carine Ru, James Halliday, Sara Kiani, Jishnudeep Kar, Noel Corpuz , Shania Wong, KM, Pam Gaslow, Jayanti Bhasker, Loyalty Science Lab, Claire Splan, Macey Malone, A. S. Deller, Tca Venkatesan, Kevin Wilson, Ryan Bush, Krista Varela Posell, Brett Chrest, ColeTretheway, Stein Janssen, Liz McLeod, Elle C., Aerik Sylvan,

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.