WRITING CHALLENGE

The Cream Rises to the Top

My Self-Selected Top 10 Stories

Dr. Mehmet Yildiz challenged us to write a story where we can include 5 to 10 of our best stories on Medium to showcase the diversity of our work.

While his intent was to give us something specific to work on, my Scanner brain saw an opportunity to go all over the place. A scanner, according to the late, great Barbara Sher, is someone who has too many interests and refuses to be locked down by just one.

I am a Jack of Many Trades and a Master of Some. I am a Scanner.

Oh, I also have another issue; Imposter Syndrome. My friend Noor calls it a fancy name for procrastination. It is also a symptom of perfectionism that paralyzes writers.

Yes, I have mastered the craft.

I have been (pretending to be) working on this story for over 10 days; picking, choosing, and rejecting stories to include. There comes a time when you say, “F**k it, let’s just do it.”

On one of the dark nights of the soul, around forty years ago, I took a yellow notepad and started scribbling. Over the years, I have played with it and edited it a little; otherwise, it is as I wrote it in one sitting, with no experience in writing poetry.

That started a habit, more of a trend to write down random thoughts occasionally. About six years ago, I challenged myself to do that for thirty days in a row, with an intent to take those thoughts and turn them into a book.

Life: It’s A Trip resulted from that project, and I shared one of the stories from the book on Medium when I started writing way back when. The Curators of Medium distributed it in Spirituality and Self. It was my first curated story.

Writing random thoughts led to a desire to learn about the art and craft of writing. I enrolled in a correspondence course for Children's Writing. That was long before the advent of the Internet. This is the first story I wrote for the class, edited many times over the years.

In addition to writing, I also enjoy photography. On Christmas Day, last year, I combined my two loves and wrote a story about how to overcome the so-called writer’s block. The curators of Medium thought it was a good one, and distributed it in Creativity and Writing.

The above story was published in Freedom Lifestyle, a publication I started. I wanted a place where I can express my thoughts about my unusual lifestyle. The next story talks about that.

My definition of Freedom Lifestyle includes a lot of travel, and I have written many stories about traveling adventures. One of my favorites is my trip along Historic Route 66. Four years ago, I left Chicago on foot, and arrived at the Santa Monica Pier, six months later. Here is the story of Walking Route 66.

The proudest moment of my writing on Medium came when I became a writer for The Start-Up, the largest non-Medium-owned publication. This is the only story I have submitted to them because shortly thereafter, I received the invitation to write for ILLUMINATION; I have almost exclusively written for them ever since.

I received the invitation from Dr. Yildiz to write for ILLUMINATION on March 19th, and I published my first story on March 21st. It’s an idea that’s near and dear to me and aligns with the lifestyle I live and enjoy.

The beauty of ILLUMINATION is that it is designed to support the writing community while serving the readers. I love the collaboration between the writers and the support we receive and provide for each other.

The next story was a result of a collaboration challenge from two of the writers on ILLUMINATION: Sherry McGuinn and Henery X (long). These challenges came in the wake of the unrest that resulted from COVID-19 and was compounded by the mistreatment and death of George Floyd.

The final story is an op-ed I wrote about my experience when I attended a live online event hosted and organized by Tony Robbins. Google picked it up, and I received a lot of traffic via the search engine.

There you have it. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

As always, thank you for reading and responding.

Rasheed Hooda is a published author and a regular contributor to ILLUMINATION, a writers’ community on Medium where writers support each other.

He is a self-proclaimed weirdo who lives a Freedom Lifestyle and writes about related topics — Travel (a top writer), Personal Growth, Freedom, and entrepreneurship. (Get the Newsletter)

More about me:

An interview by Dr. M Yildiz for ILLUMINATION

Testimonial by other writers.