Your July Challenge; Day 5
We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident
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.
I will include your stories in an upcoming version of the “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.
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!
Did you know that you can clap more than once? I know, seems silly once you figure it out, but many folks (myself included) go quite a while doling out one clap before they realize that you can go up to 50 on any given article.
Another not-so-obvious fact is that you can hold down your mouse button (or trackpad or press the hand icon) and the claps will automatically increase. No need for fifty consecutive clicks or taps.
Now that you know that, you probably will need to develop a Clap Strategy. For more insight on that, check out these great stories from Holly Jahangiri and Roz Warren that give us the lowdown on mashing the clap button.
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:
Today Nomanono Isaacs specifically noted that she had completed her bio as a response to my July Feature. Give it a read 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:
Today’s Challenge and Response
Today I took a stab at responding to B. A. Cumberlidge. prompt asking to define our true meaning in life:
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:
Sherry McGuinn, the prolific prompter, offered up this one yesterday:
Infiniti suggested this great prompt: Something Weird Happened… It is on my list.
And Holly Jahangiri in her nonchalant brilliance suggested this one: Why I avoid the number 13 at all costs! Looking forward to this one as well.
Infiniti and Holly are said to be crafting their responses.
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, and to then review another writer’s “best of” article:
Tree Langdon ♾️ asked us to create new words that should be in the dictionary:
B. A. Cumberlidge. asked who we would invite to dinner:
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!
Yannis Georgiadis, KD Murray, Isabella Lahoue, Stuart Englander, Valentina Colapicchioni, Arun Kailasam, Sidharth B, Virginia Villari, Paul Fairbairn, Edward Anthony Moore III, Danielle Hulme, Tejdeep Kaur, Jayden Yugie, Dylan Skurka, Kimberly Mintz, Gary Stover, MD, Stephanie Em, Reginald Ben-Halliday, Abhina, Tyrone Kidney, Olly Singleton, Gunawan Saputra, Akansha Priyadarshani,
Illumination is all about being engaged and positive interaction. New writers, we can’t wait to hear what you have to say!
If you liked this article, 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.
