Writing
Welcome to Newbie ILLUMINATION Writers. Tips to Be Active & Successful
ILLUMINATION has a special way of looking at the world. This is how can you shine as a writer on this publication!
Illumination is a publication with a special mission to empower our 500+ writers to produce high-quality and high-impact stories. We embrace diversity, synergy, fusion, and serendipity. We like to give the best experience to our readers with quality writing about a large variety of subjects.
As writers, we are daring and sharing. We give first and if we all give, there’s enough for all of us to receive. Easy. We become successful while being active, supporting each other, and having fun.
I just want to share some of my experiences in this group to make you feel welcome and help you on your way. Please remember, I was also a newbie two months ago. I knew nobody when I entered this Illumination community in March 2020.
So you can just follow in my footsteps and build your own experience…
Dr Mehmet Yildiz is the father of this publication. You might check out some of his earlier articles on vision, strategy, and innovation agenda. On content quality, core values, and becoming a prolific writer.
Here’s a recap he wrote in April.
In March 2020, he invited some writers who shared his values and the Illumination culture emerged from there. Now, two months later, we have over 500 writers and 7,000 readers. It’s growing fast in numbers and diversity.
For me, the best part of being an Illumination writer is that I don’t feel so alone on this vast Medium platform anymore. I found friends to share my writing passions with. And my creative flow is better than ever before.
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have” — Maya Angelou
So, here are my tips:
1 Giving First, Receiving Later
As writers, we are all readers. So we reach out to other writers by reading their work. We read with care, we clap with enthusiasm and we leave supporting comments and add value by enhancing to other people’s stories with our own experience or expertise.
We don’t impose ourselves. We honestly connect. We are kind.
2 Daring and Sharing
We shed our insecurities and we write with passion. Some of us write stories that include other people’s stories. Always relevant links. Always in a supporting way. Never tag randomly. Always tread mindfully…
We inspire each other by giving writing prompts. One of the first I remember was this one by Sherry McGuinn. If I wasn’t a writer, I’d be… Rasheed Hooda took up the challenge and wrote his own story. In this one, you find the original by Sherry and more from others as well.
See what one prompt can do. It gives a chain and lots of well-written, fun stories!
3 Quality and Quantity
Quality comes first. But we are in a community that feels like family. So you can make mistakes. You can experiment. You can learn by reading a lot, by reaching out to our editors or to other writers you admire. And become better writers every step of the way.
Here’s a story by one of our editors Timothy Key with many useful links inside to quality subjects like image captioning, copyright, formatting, etc.
Quantity is the next best after quality. In the beginning, Mehmet challenged us to write short stories (up to 300 words) about any subject, ending with three pieces of advice. All of us did it differently. But we achieved flow. Beautiful flow!
4 Introduce yourself
For me, it was a real challenge when Mehmet asked us to introduce ourselves. I read a lot of others first before I dared. But it was a great step to becoming the writer I am now. Daring to go out of my comfort zone. Be all of me!
For the community, it was a great move. Because how can you become friends when you don’t know each other? Here are the writers’ biographies of Illumination writers and editors.
5 Make Friends
Friendships flourish on Illumination. Here’s a story by Henery X (long) who tells us about his friendships with Amy Marley, KeepingItRealWithAnnick, and several others. This is what Illumination can be for you as a newbie as well when you reach out and connect to the writers you like.
The diversity is large, so we see poets who like each others’ work. We see business skill writers, who connect. And we see many writers stepping out of their well-known little niche and connecting to unknown worlds. That’s the spirit!
6 Outside of Medium
Illumination has a goal to make all writers successful. To attract as many readers a possible and give them a worthwhile reading experience. So we reach out in many ways.
Also here, becoming active is the recipe for success. We have a Slack group (213 members to date) you can join to communicate directly with other writers. We can even spam our own stories there. LOL.
In Slack, one of the editors will give us focus stories so one story will get a lot of attention at a certain time. Activity all around. And of course, you are most welcome to be part of it! If you have problems entering or whatever, just reach out to our editors (or to me in the comments).
We share our work on Twitter. Some volunteers put all of our stories on Facebook. We use LinkedIn to connect and share. And there are lots of discussions going on about RSS feeds, Pinterest and whatever new strategy someone decides on. The vibe is vibrant!
And everybody just adds her or his skills. No obligation, just activating.
7 Search Engine Optimization
For me, the absolute SEO-expert in this group is 🦄 Chris Hedges. I learned so much just reading and listening to all her advice! Chris set up the Illumination Spotlight, where you can enter your stories and have extra visibility for SEO.
As some of us might know, link building and search words are very important for SEO. So the more activity the better. Illumination Spotlight has been made for us to shine. Why not use it? Here’s some more info from Chris about it.
8 Sharing about Stats
After a while, some of us started sharing our stats experiences with Illumination. We noticed things. Like the fact that Illumination readers are careful readers. They don’t just view and click on. They notice. They clap. They respond. And it becomes visible in our stats.
This is what I wrote about my stats on April 9.
And some other writers shared their findings on stats as well. Here’s one by Gurpreet Dhariwal.
More to Follow
I must honestly say, Illumination is such an active bunch and growing so rapidly that I don’t know everything that’s going on anymore. But that doesn’t matter. I’m on the edge of the vibe.
I feed a lot of love and cross-pollination into the group and I’m fed in return with lots of inspiration, one-on-one contacts, and friendships.
Kevin Buddaeus, did I miss to mention anything important? Please, add to my story with your editor wisdom in the comments if you think our newbies need to know more…
One of my favorite quotes on success is this one:
“Measure your success by the price you paid to achieve it”
— Quote by Unknown
I can’t remember who said it. But if I project this on my experience with Illumination, my success is huge. Because I don’t pay a price. I receive a bonus. FUN!
All I can say is, don’t be overwhelmed. Don’t be shy. You want to be a writer. Here’s your family. You can relax, find inspiration, be part of the promotion vibes and show all of your talents at large!
The more daring you become, the more friends you will find. Reach out to all of us and feel welcome. You have come home…
And if you want to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or somewhere in nature, studying cross-pollinating busy bees…
