Your July Challenge; Day 13

Who’s Excited About Election Season!

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!

Formatting: the good news and the bad news. First off, the general format and presentation of Medium stories is pretty excellent. It was one of the things that drew me in as a reader, and eventually a writer on the platform.

The ability to use a great photo, and the layout that invites reading, and the time estimation of the article length are all great. But they are also very, very standard. If you want your article to look really different, you are going to have to get pretty creative within the limits of the story editor.

For instance, there is no way to tab a line inward in order to have a staggered look for your writing; something that could make a poem look really cool, for instance. Everything is left-indented to the same spot.

The only exceptions are the large quote marks and, the ability to lead a paragraph with an oversize letter. Aside from that, everything is going to align left. I do know that Medium has been open to suggestions in the past. Perhaps if enough people write in?

I put my tongue in my cheek yesterday and wrote this while I was playing around, hoping to help out Joe Luca (with no luck).

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:

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 Zach J. Watson to create a testimonial for another writer, but in the spirit of election season, do it in a campaign ad format:

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:

Charles Roast makes a first-time appearance this month with his tongue right in his cheek where we often find it. He 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:

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 two new ones; Create at least one testimonial for another writer whom you admire. He offers this one as an example:

And, he asks us to write on a topic, and proposes: “Jealousy”:

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:

B. A. Cumberlidge. that asks when we can start tackling the important issues of our day:

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!

Vaishnavi Paliwal, Channing Lee, Helen Hazelmare, Lester Golden, Michael Lubinski, Marc Palumbo, Karen DeGroot Carter, Ritarshi Banerjee, Ozden Bennett, pooja junnuri, Shaurya Gulati, Ashley Chow, Sadiq Rza, Lizzy Wang, Tori Champine, Rachel Yerks, Natalie Alnic, Aparajita Pk, Idan Solon, Daniella Cavenagh, Ph.D., Manasi, Paula Perea, Akshad Singi, Joe Loper, Ankit Gupta, Abdul Qadeer, Abi Anday, Penny Zhou, Sayeed Ibrahim Ahmed, Sunha Paul Kim, Ehsan

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.