Your July Challenge; Day 22

The Debate Over Returning to the Classroom

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!

While Medium does have some keyboard shortcuts that will let you type in symbols like these: ØÁˇ◊˜, it is much easier to simply copy symbols from another source and paste them into the Medium story editor.

Want to have a moment, 🤪 or have your mind 🤯 ? Simply go to a generic free emoji site and copy the symbol you wish to use. And then, have fun!

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:

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:

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:

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

After much foot tapping on someone’s part, I finally got to this one that I had languished on for a while from Holly Jahangiri and Rasheed Hooda who 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.”

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:

B. A. Cumberlidge has a new one for us today. It is a bit complex, but it is essentially to write a story on any topic, and then create a short video that supports the written story. Make sure you see his post for all the deets:

Joe Luca queries us with this one: You have one call to make and only one, to anybody in your past, dead or alive. Dial their number if you know it. Dial their name if you don’t. They will answer. Good luck.

Earnest Painter suggests the theme: Emotionally Frustrated Artist.

Sherry McGuinn is back with a new prompt as well; What is Your Mantra?

Finding wisdom among the highlights. Britni Pepper suggested this one:

Find a story you like. Pick out a sentence you like — the sort you’d normally highlight — and present it as if it were a notable quote from a famous person. It is rare that someone writes a story without some snippet of wisdom that can be highlighted and expanded. Awesome point Britni!

Dr Mehmet Yildiz suggests that we create at least one testimonial for another writer whom you admire. He offers this one as an example:

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

This week I took on challenges by Desiree Driesenaar, Sherry McGuinn, Infiniti, Rasheed Hooda, B. A. Cumberlidge., Zach J. Watson, and Holly Jahangiri Read all of them in the Your July Challenge; Week Two:

Week 3

This one is in response to an idea generated by Desiree Driesenaar which has some (at least partial) origin with Holly Jahangiri. It is to create an Abecedarian poem. I think the topic is open, although Desiree chose to use life perspective.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz asks us to write on a topic, and proposes: “Jealousy”:

Charles Roast asks you to write about a very special tree. He chose a poem format, but allows that we can create in any format we wish:

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.

Geetika Sethi tagged me in a prompt originating with Brett Christensen. It is to write a Haiku or Tanka with the prompt dry:

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!

Glennis Lofland, Kapilgoel, Halimah Kasim, Manmeet Singh, Manvendra Singh, Nehal Khan, Raqeebah Buhari, Thor Blomfield, Muniza Master, Ja’Juan Burrell, Wie Kiang H., Russell Rowe, Liza Blue, 𝙳𝚊𝚗𝚒 𝙶𝚒𝚋𝚋𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜 𝙼𝚌𝙶𝚊𝚠, Franco Amati, Amy Skeel, Michelle Tjin, Caspar, Deborah Oyegue, Irish Toffee, JustAnnet 👑, Ishan Kukrety, Michael Thorn, Ryan Porter, Caden O’Rourke, Nehal Khan, Liane Carmi, Michael Seppanen, Bhathiya Wendakoon, MD, BSc, Savannah Wallace, Kshiteej Jaiswal, Shefali O’Hara, Murat Knecht, Hassan Audu Musa, Nicole Blythe, Md Fahad Alam,

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

Here is a link to a list of all July’s challenges in one place:

And, you may also like:

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.