September 2021 Writing Tips, Recommended Stories, Writer Interviews, and Scripture Prompts

Inside Look — a monthly update for readers and writers of Koinonia Publication

Kimberley Payne

Published in

Koinonia

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Newsletter

11 min readOct 1, 2021

Leadership Update

It’s with mixed emotions that I share that the September issue of Koinonia newsletter will be the last one sent out by me. October is my birthday month, and I have decided to resign my position on Koinonia.

Janis Cox and I founded Koinonia Publication back in 2019 and it has grown from 2 writers to almost 400! I love to see what God is doing in and through the publication…very exciting.

When Jan retired her role, it was somewhat “okay” as I was there to step in and take over the reins with a team of editors. But now I feel like it is my time to resign from my role. I truly love Koinonia and all that it represents. I think God is honoured through the writings that go out into a very secular world.

Koinonia really is unique in that we are a fellowship more than just a publication. The Facebook group, the prayers, the scripture prompts, the recommendations of others’ writings, the editing team … these are all things that other pubs don’t have. And I would hate for it to end because I plan to resign.

I am delighted to share that it won’t end! Julie Ranson has agreed to take on the leadership of Koinonia.

Julie joined Koinonia in June 2020 as a writer and then took on the role as an editor and also joined the vetting team. She has been writing most of her life, and her education includes a BS, MBA, and PhD. She became a Christian at age 14 and believes that circulating in a community of faith is central to life. You can learn a little more about Julie in her interview.

Please join me in welcoming Julie to this new role and praying for her and for Koinonia Publication.

Quick Stats

As of September 30, 2021, we have had 393 writers join our publication!
Out of the 26 days of September (we don’t post on Sundays) we had a total of 116 stories with an average of 5 per day.
Koinonia has 2700 Followers.
The total number of views Koinonia has received on all posts and pages is 38,202 Views (30 days).
The average number of unique daily visitors who have visited Koinonia is 957 Visitors (30-day average). Each visitor is counted once per day, even if they view multiple pages or the same page multiple times.

Writer Interviews

Since we started the writer interviews in May 2019, we’ve shared 92 writer interviews to date!

Writers on Writing is a compilation of 35 interviews from Koinonia writers of faith exploring where they get their ideas, what they like best about writing, and what inspires them.

Whatever your background, you will be inspired by these incredible interviews that contain a unique look into the world of a faith writer.

Available on Amazon. Get your copy today!

Writing Tips

The writing tips in September that were shared on our Facebook group include:

Kimberley Payne: I share my technique for fighting overwhelm in, “Is Too Much Time Worse Than Not Enough Time?”

Bett Harris: Who utilizes the SEO description section before they send their story for publication? SEO, Search Engine Optimization allows you to enter a description of your story using key words. This is the section the big search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc use to find good content.

This option is located under the three dots (…) beside the Publish button at the top of your story. Click under More settings, and scroll close to the bottom and you’ll see it. It’s best to summarize your story in 140–156 characters. If you don’t complete this section Medium automatically populates it with the first few lines of your post.

I wrote more on SEO if you’re interested. Or, search Medium or Google yourself. There’s lots of info out there about it.

Katharine Trauger: Another easy way to find typos and edits is to increase font to … maybe size 50 or so, allowing only a few words on each line. Kinda funny what is visible then.

Katharine Trauger: And I have a question: What might have caused the expected editing tools to have disappeared? In fb and in word, I do not have the wavy lines, red or green. I have to rely on my spelling and editing, alone. Is this b/c I have never installed gramarly? Anyone?

Julie Ranson: In Facebook you’d need grammarly installed. I love it! I wrote about it in koinonia’s writing section

Katharine Trauger: Actually, I’ve never had grammarly, but I’ve always had the wavy lines until recently….???

Julie Ranson: You must have had some other browser extension installed. Have you changed browsers?

Katharine Trauger: I got a new computer and am confused about that, actually. It seems I have more than one, but …??? Pretty sure I only have edge, but sometimes it looks like I have google… idk.

Bett Harris: Also, I think you need Chrome for Grammarly to work. At least I did.

Katharine Trauger: I get that, but I don’t HAVE grammarly. I just used to have the wavy lines and now I don’t.

Rocky Paredes: Offhand, there are 3 particular instances that cause your squiggly lines to disappear in MS Word. One: you or an application accidentally disabled spell check. To check this, open Word then click on File then on Options, then on Proofing. If the box next to “Check spelling errors as you type” is blank then click in the box next to it (a checkmark will appear inside the box) then click OK. You should get your red squiggly lines back in word. There are two other probable possibilities but let’s start here and write back to let us know. Hint: Notice that further down on the same area in proofing, you can stop spell checker when you have a document that hasn’t been named yet such as the default Document1. If “Hide spelling errors in this document only” is checked. then uncheck it. the other possibility is that a recent add-on has turned your spell checker off. May God Bless

Katharine Trauger: I will check that. Would that remove the wavy lines in fb and M, also? I seem to have spellcheck and grammer check in Word, now! Yay! However, still not online…??? I misspelled “grammar” just to see…

Rocky Paredes: The instructions are Word in particular. Actually Facebook does not have a spell checker. Spell check is done through your browser — FireFox, Google Chrome so on. Try enabling your Spell Check when you reply to me by purposely misspelling a word on your reply. While you are there right click inside where you are writing your reply. You’ll see a menu. One choice is “Check Spelling”. It should have a check mark next to it meaning that it is enabled. If not then click on “Check Spelling” then click anywhere outside your reply — your squiggly line should be back. Note: Sometimes “Check Spelling” does have a check mark next to it. Try unchecking it then check it back on. God Bless. PS. What is “M”? Is it Monster’s Inc.? Sorry dad humor. Also, if you use Grammarly, even the free version, you can download an add-on for your browser(s) and get Grammarly when you write in any browser it is installed on. Write back if further questions.

Katharine Trauger: So here’s the mespelled word. Haha. And M stands for the wonderful folks who pay us to write. I thought since this is an M group, everyone would know?

AND…I got facebook spellcheck back!!! Oh THANK YOU!

Rocky Paredes: I’m so happy for you that you got your spell checker for Word, Facebook, and “M” back. Based on the info from turning it back on it seems that a program changed your browser and app spell checker settings. As a precaution I recommend running your anti-virus and malware checker — just as a precaution. Have a very Blessed afternoon!

Katharine Trauger: Thanks again. It runs itself, unbidden, quite often. But thanks. Our internet is weak and that is always a consideration.

Julie Ranson: In word, click Review at the top. Click far left button that reads spelling and grammar. That should turn it on. You can also click the editing icon in Words status bar, lower left. Looks like a book…

Katharine Trauger: I somehow managed to get the spelling and grammar check back on, in Word! However, still not in fb…???

Julie Ranson: word and Facebook are not connected. Not that I know of.

Bett Harris: In my Word on my iPad I can get Word to read my story to me. That helps me pick up errors too. Click Review and you’ll find capital A with what looks like an echo beside it (two small arcs).

Katharine Trauger: I found that in Word, too. Thanks for the heads up.

Kimberley Payne: Are you on the fence about writing on Medium? I provide 3 reasons that it’s a good idea.

Katharine Trauger: I do not know what kind of writing this is, but this is how I do my writing, SO often. Writing for Real

Katharine Trauger: I also have a question about stats. What causes a random spike in views? On Sept. 6, I received TEN TIMES the views of the usual for the month. Every now and then, that happens. Cannot figure it out.

Katharine Trauger: When writing something very serious but difficult to capture, try writing with pencil on notebook paper that is ruled for grade school and use double space.

When stumped about which word to choose, try writing in all the words that could be used and keep going, instead of stopping to check a thesaurus right that moment. When making a writing mistake, such as a messy, illegible word or even misspelled, just leave it, or even rewrite it directly after the mistake knowing you will be back and have plenty of space to fix.

Because of all the additional words, estimating word count is inaccurate. It really reads a little like Amplified Bible, but it is so freeing.

Because it is double spaced, make changes between the lines, add or subtract ideas between lines, circle entire lines and indicate with arrow where they should be. My best writing comes from this method.

Katharine Trauger: Wondering where Medium stands on the idea of creating a series. I see them everywhere, but thought they were not allowed for use behind that ever more serpentine paywall. If we write things that, in fact, are a series, but don’t label them as such, is there a penalty?

Or is there another creative way to handle a too-long subject?

Kimberley Payne: Here is an article by Casey Botticello but it’s dated 2019. I tried it back then but found it complicated. I don’t see the option to create a series in our dropdown menus anymore.

“As of October 2020, Medium no longer supports the Series format for posting content on Medium. They are no longer accessible from profile pages, but they still can be viewed using the direct link.”

Katharine Trauger: Wow. Thank you for finding this! Super-sleuth! So the Koinonia official position would be to avoid them? Or…???

Kimberley Payne: Can’t create them anymore so I think you are best to avoid them.

Kimberley Payne: Have you ever had a story curated on Medium? I share my love/hate relationship with curation.

Rocky Paredes: Amazon started a platform called Kindle Vella (like a novella) where you can submit chapters or episodes at a time. You get paid by the number of words readers buy. Here are some details:

Katharine Trauger: Thanks, Rocky Paredes! I shall check that out!

Kimberley Payne: Tips for your own writing and tips to support other writers

Julie Ranson: I didn’t have to search my long published list because I have organized all my writing-related articles in a LIST. Here’s a shortform piece on how Medium’s list feature works.

What’s Your Story

I recently completed a series on Medium called, What’s Your Story? This series featured Christians who are saved — many who are writers on Koinonia — and tells the story of how this happened.

One story was featured each week and collected into a book.

Available on Amazon! Get your copy today…price goes up at the end of October 2021.

Scripture Prompt Challenge

We introduced the Scripture Prompt challenge at the beginning of 2020 and have chosen 12 of our favorite verses and randomly assigned them to a month.

The Scripture for September was Romans 12:1–2. It’s exciting to read the different stories that have been shared by our writers:

What a Scottish Sprinter Taught Me About Pleasing God by Michael Ranjitsingh

Should I Attend a Worldly Church by Julie Ranson

For You, Lord by Andrea Cannon

Who Would Ever Want to Be a Living Sacrifice by Trip Kimball

The Scripture prompt for October 2021 is Hebrews 12:1.

We have provided you with three versions here but you are welcome to use any version you prefer.

Hebrews 12:1 KJV
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
Hebrews 12:1 NIV
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Hebrews 12:1 MSG
Do you see what this means-all these pioneers who blaze the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running-and never quit. No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.

If you are interested in participating in the prompt, please make sure to include:

Kicker: Scripture Prompt

Tag: Scripture

Think about…

Does this scripture spark a memory?
What new lesson did God teach you?
How can you use this scripture message in your life?

Conclusion

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little round-up of what’s happening on Koinonia.

If you have not yet liked our Koinonia Facebook Page, please like it today. This is where we post the stories and you can share with your friends on FB.

Many blessings,

Kimberley Payne

Co-founder of Koinonia

P.S. If you’re considering buying a Medium membership for unlimited, ad-free access to all stories on Medium please do so through my link below. You won’t pay a penny more but I will get a small commission. Thanks!

Join Medium with my referral link — Kimberley Payne

As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…

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