Day 105 - 5 Minute Freewrite: Thursday - Prompt: elephant

Please welcome our newest freewriters. Visit their blogs please, leave them a comment and if you can, a vote.
@juwel
@mikesthoughts
@doodlebear
@zen-art
@marie-jay

Prizes

You all are completely blowing me away with your generosity and by how much you care for this community. We got 3 more donations!! Wow!!
A huge shout out to @felt.buzz for donating for both days!!!
And another huge shout out for our steem home creator @omra-sky for boosting the Day 101 pot!!

A HUGE thank you to both of you!!!

Prize for Day 100: 25 SBD and the SBD payout of the post!!!
You have until Friday 2/2 at 6 PM Pacific Time to enter!! Multiple entries are allowed as long as it is with a different partner! Click here for details

Prize for Day 101: 24 SBD and the SBD payout of the post!
You have until Saturday, 2/3 at 6 PM to enter the contest. Click here for details
If you want to donate to increase the pot, send your donation with a note - prize Day 101 to my wallet. And upvote the post.

Over 20 Club

If you haven't had a chance yet to read the posts four of our Over 20 Club invitees already posted, go for it! You will read how it was in the very beginning :).
I will post them again on Friday. But please, visit one of them per day and give them one of your lovely fully powered up 100% votes.

If you don't understand what 100% vote and powered up is all about, read the articles on voting below.

@snook Incredible Journey

@felt.buzz A Look Back

@improv On Freewriting

@deaconlee My over 20 Freewrite Posts

If you don't know what the Over 20 Club is, read about it here

The short explanation is that we, as a group, want to give an extra boost to those who are regular freewriters. Please try to reserve 1 vote a day (or however you want to divide it up) for the Over 20 Club. You too will be a featured member before you know it!!

Prompt: elephant

Set your timer for 5 minutes
Start writing
Use the hashtag #freewrite
Publish your piece (include a link to this post if you wish)

Copy and paste your URL into the comment section of the prompt post.

• Or, if you don't want to publish your freewrite, just copy and paste as a comment under the prompt post.

If you don't know what a freewrite is, here is a link to the introduction post.

Here is @snooks excellent tutorial on how to join our freewrite adventure

And @improv's input:

Two things I do a little differently. I just type "timer" into google and it pops up a 5-minute timer. I also type directly into steemit. I also rarely use a photo, don't I? So that's three things.

Please read, comment and vote (if you have voting power) on each others freewrites as much as you can. Especially if you are new to the platform, you will be surprised how many friendships are formed by reading and commenting on each other's work!

Bandwidth Problems

I know that many of you are very new to the platform and your wallets are pretty empty. Believe me, we all started there!! Here is an excellent article which explains what bandwidth is and why you might have a hard time logging in some days - or posting. Thank you @jrswab for this explanation

There are many contests on Steemit. From art to music to writing and everything in between. Enter as many as you can!! And take advantage of the free money people give away I listed in the money section below.

My wallet grew in leaps and bounds when I participated in a selfie challenge which ended up with a huge prize pot. I used all of the SBD to buy Steem and turned that into Steempower. Almost 2/3 of my steempower came and is now coming from winning contests and/or participating in giveaways. Give it a try!!

Voting

Remember to check your voting power. Do not vote for a while if you are under 90!
https://www.steemnow.com/ or use https://steemworld.org/

Here is an excellent article explaining how to maximize your vote by @taskmaster4450. It helps you to grow to vote wisely!! And a more recent one

And here is a counter opinion on voting by our freewriter @improv

This post is talking about using your vote for maximum curation. Thank you, Asher @abh12345 Read the post here

Check out this post - one of our freewriters got a shout out!!

Great Opportunity

This is a great opportunity for those of you who are more serious about your writing and are ready to take it to the next place. The Isle of Write just announced their new project. SBD can be won and you can even make it into a print edition. Read the details here.
An update on how to enter your work.

Contests

• Fellow freewriter @fireawymarmot is offering a little different writing contest. Listen to his music and write. [Find out more here](https://steemit.com/contest/@fireawaymarmot/win-sbd-write-from-my-music

• Our freewriter friend @moneyinfant is running a contest this week. Read all about it here

• @moneyinfant also is starting to post a daily update of writing contests!! Go to his profile and start winning :)

• Another compilation of [all kinds of contests by @artz](https://steemit.com/contest/@artz/steemit-contest-compilation-29-01-04-02-win-free-sbd-and-steem

• @arbitrarykitten is running a weekly contest to encourage you to become better photographers - a good skill to have for you steemit success..

• A valentines challenge from SteemPulp Thank you @bhop42moro for finding this one. Do check it out - you have until February 14th!!

• @improv is the master of puns! Enter his Punday contest here

• The Constrained Writing Contest by our fellow freewriter @svashta is on! Check his blog for the latest contest. Click here to join

• @miniature-tiger is hosting a 50-word story challenge. This is the opposite of what we are doing.
  Here, you spill your gut out typing fast! The timer is beeping any time.
  There - think about every word. You only get 50 to tell the story!
  Click here to accept the challenge! and check his profile for the newest updates.

• The pink rabbit contest is hosted by our freewriter friend @janine-ariane. If this link is outdated, just check her profile for the newest contest.

• If you like a picture to be the prompt, check out the #365daysofwriting challenge hosted by @mydivathings. Every day, a new picture to entice you weave a story.

If you come across any other contests the freewriters might want to enter, please let me know!

Writing help

• A free app: Grammarly. A lot of us are not native English speakers and I am finding it a helpful app. It will underline spelling and grammar mistakes. Just remember that is is not always right -especially if you use complex sentence structures. Here is the link

• Remember The Most Dangerous Writing App. You set the time - 5 min - and start typing. Don’t stop!!! It will destroy what you wrote if you stop for more than 3 seconds - and backspace does not count as writing on the app. If you are prone to stop and think - this app forces you to keep going. You can make corrections after the 5 minutes are over.

• A timer. Egg timer is a free tool you can use on your desktop to set a time. This is useful for our freewrites or if you want to work in blocks of time and then take a break. Here is the link

• Our fellow freewriter @arbitrarykitten has a business here on Steemit. Several editors are offering to edit and format your post for a small fee. Check out their intro post

• Our discord channel Isle of Write has workshop rooms for fiction, non-fiction, and poetry where some of the experienced writers might be able to give some tips. Join with this link https://discord.gg/zfXNRnK

• If you are ready to get serious about improving your understanding of the English language check out @majes.tytyty blog. He has lots of useful information to understand words and their roots better. If you have questions or need help, leave a comment on his blog.

• Check out @ghasemkiani if English is not your first language. He explains many idioms. Often to use those correctly is the biggest struggle when using a foreign language. He uses #idioms-tutorial

• If you know of other helpful tools or people, please share with us!

Money

There are several people who offer SBD for free on this platform! How great is that!!

Here are a few

@fisheggs - follow this account and you get upvotes at random times.
@sydesjokes - he rewards his followers with SBD for any kind of interaction with him- comment, vote, resteem.
@craigcryptoking- he does a giveaway a few times a week. All you have to do is to be the first, or fourth or eight commenter. And he added a few more.
@danielsaori - he does a comment contest. A new challenge every week.
@rexusmo - I think a few of you have started to leave links to your post. Every day, he has a cheering up post. You leave a link to a post you are proud off and you might get a reward. Keep trying!!

Steemit Tools

This is the most comprehensive list of applications on this blockchain I have seen. I highly recommend that you bookmark it!! I also will include it in the growing resource section in the future. Steemit Tools

Staying Legal

This is an excellent article by @dmcamera on how to use images legally. A must read!!

Discord

Remember, we have our own room in the Isle of Write Discord!
Here is the link to join . https://discord.gg/zfXNRnK

If you like this and want more people to come out and play - resteem!

Courtesy of @celestal

Also, I would love it if you all check out each others #freewrite and spread some love :)

@ackhoo @ahmadmanga @ana-maria @arbitrarykitten @alvinauh @alxgraham @annhoyblog @abyni @authorofthings @arkayani @ameliabartlett @amos-robinson
@bashadow @bloghound @brisby @byn @btcnoodle @binkyprod @brazen
@bleedingheart @beatenegg @bitsendpieces @belemo @boladayl
@chuazm @citizenzero @creationofcare @cecicastor @cikxaijen @celestal @cvmidwife @cecirod1218 @carolkean @calluna @crookshanks @clodaghdowning @cbrayst
@deaconlee @deemarshall @dennisauburn @dmcamera @dfrankle @digitalmutt @debbietiyan @daithilifereport @deirdyweirdy @davinsh @daqueend @docpaoh @doodlebear
@ecoinstant @elizacheng @ellievallie @eggstraordinair @elijahniel12 @emdesan @ebitularmbert
@f3nix @fitinfun @felt.buzz @fishyculture @foffelius @freedomtowrite @fireawaymarmot
@gniksivart @girlbeforemirror @ghostfish
@hernandezch @hemendrapatar @hartfloe
@improv @iyanpol12 @imcesca @isaganispeaks @itworks4sierra @iknowkungfu @isa93 @iikanji
@janine-ariane @jayna @jewels3 @jie28 @jjwriter85 @jkiw @johnwjr7 @jbn @jrhughes @jyezie @jedau @juwel
@knightengale @kerlund @kcoyote
@littlenewthings @littlescribe @lenapena @lucylin @lonestarpoet @ldacey-laforge @ladylei
@long888 @lindahas
@marcoriccardi @marillaanne @melinda010100 @miniature-tiger @mydivathings @maverickinvictus @molovelly @mrslauren @mr-neil @mountainjewel @mkkenny @mwoodall @mel1ss @mylittleblurbs @martinwbender @metzli @moneyinfant @mylittleblurbs @mcoinz79 @mariaentela @maki07
@nathanthewise @navaneeth @not-a-bird @nays @nicktravers
@omra-sky @old-guy-photos @olaivart @otsouvalas
@preparedwombat @pumpkinsandcats @pixiehunter
@rainbowme @raj808 @rok-sivante @rensoul17 @racemlaadhar @rubertd @rhei86
@shanibeer @sharoonyasir @simgirl @snook @stinawog @sayee @slhomestead @steemitgraven29 @someoneusual @svashta @saryn @starfall @snrm @syzegy @saronym @shula14 @serapium @saffisara
@srivera @spellmaker
@tezmel @themerrylotus @theprettysoul @thereikiforest @topkpop @tpkidkai @tegoshei @tattoodjay @thisgirl @thechosenwhan @the-real-coral
@valorforfreedom
@wandrnrose7 @whatilearned @whatisnew @wildwoman @wonderwop @wido @warpedpoetic
@yomibolo @yadah04
@zen-art

a gift from @snook

Join us for the daily 5 - Minute Freewrite. Check my profile for a new prompt every day.

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