eHow, Helium, and Squidoo all shut down. It's time to move all the articles on HubPages to the blogosphere.

I can string words together and have fairly good grammar. I have ideas and information to share. I started with eHow and learned a lot there but they shut us down. So, I moved some of my articles to Helium.

I liked Helium and had a very good time with new writing friends. I practiced my craft at article writing and actually made some money but they also shut down. I moved some of those articles to my computer and the rest found their way to Squidoo. I have enough articles on camping to write my own book which I may do someday.

I had a great time on Squidoo but we were told that they were closing their doors too. It was discouraging but Squidoo had made arrangements with HubPages to take all our lenses and make them hubs. Before the transfer, I deleted more than 50 articles because I knew they weren't going to make it on HubPages. That left about 150 which I edited to conform with their rules. I was enjoying my time until yesterday when all of a sudden some of my hubs became "unfeatured" for quality. I took a hard look at the three of them and could see where they needed to be updated.

However, I am tired of trying to fit what I want to say into other people's rules. It appears that the hubs that were former lenses are being dealt a deathblow. We (those from Squidoo) think HubPages is regretting its decision to take our lenses and this is their way of weeding them out. I updated a healthy lens today only to have it drop into unfeatured for quality. It's about baseball with lots of original photos and even more information on how to be a good baseball parent, including what not to buy.

That will be the first one that I post here next week. Our grandson has been playing baseball since he was five and now that he's got one more year in Junior High, we know a great deal about youth baseball. That information is worth sharing for other parents who might be starting out.

I will not spend any more time complaining about eHow, Helium, Squidoo, and HubPages. What I post now is only me sharing what I know and saying what I want to say.

New direction - Helium is calling it quits - where does it leave me?

When I joined Helium long ago, I was new to writing on-line. It was a wonderful experience where I met new people, learned a lot more about writing, and made a little money. A couple of years ago, they changed directions and I decided not to follow. While my 100+ articles made a little money, I stopped writing for them.

Instead, I migrated to Squidoo along with some of those from Helium where we continued to learn from each other. I have enjoyed watching people grow.

Now, Helium is shutting down and I have a problem. A lot of my Helium articles are linked to other sites. When they shut down, those links will not work anymore. I haven't worked with this blog in a long time. I have been really busy with family history and those blogs get all my attention. However, I need a home for my helium articles.

I am not going to post all of them here. I have more than 70 on camping and might turn it into some sort of book. I have some on raising a grandchild I will add to a blog I had started a while back. However, I think this is where some of my memoirs and off-topic pieces will go. Fortunately, I started this blog about writing so it seems appropriate that I use it for what I originally intended.

I loved Helium in its heyday. It was exciting and I couldn't wait to get started each day. I enjoyed the interaction with my new friends. There has not been anything quite like it since. The old staff at Helium, the original people, were helpful and made it a treat. Thanks to them for several years of motivation and encouragement. I wish it had continued but at least I had the experience and I am better for it.

Still catching up

Just finished the last fundraising article on the Student Store and posted it on the Elementary School Fundraising blog along with the others that were rewritten. The project on Helium is complete so I am not making any more money. Now I have to find articles that pay and compete with others. Out of the three that I have done, two were accepted and paid while the third was not. The competition is good for me.

I have been really busy on Squidoo

I've written more than 20 lenses. Been selected to be a SquidAngel for the month of December and applied to be a giant squid. Helium has taken a backseat. Now I am going back there to catch up on my rating and grading. I did submit 3 articles to the new marketplace system and will see if it is worth my time. Until the articles closes I will not know if I made $6.00, $3.00 or absolutely nothing.

It's Christmas Day. Everyone is still asleep. This is the last day that my Christmas lenses will do well. I almost made it to the top 100 with "I heard the bells on Christmas Day" landing at 162 today. Now, I'll have to wait until next year to see how it does.

I hate change

OK, I don't hate change but good grief, changes that are dumped on a talented bunch of writers at the last minute make such a muddle of everything. Helium has changed its payment policies and everyone is in an uproar. Given the new titles that they are offering, I can't find anything to write to and even if I did, there is no promise that I will earn anything but pennies. Still, I will wait and see before making a decision.

In the meantime, I am a RocketMom on Squidoo and have written 18 lenses in the last two weeks. I was also asked to be a SquidAngel and I get to go around and bless lenses that I think are great. It's a 30 day adventure and I have set a lens up to track those I bless. These are the ones that I have found something that touches me or are just very well done. It's been very fun there and while I will not make lots of money, it gives me more space to spread my wings. I can write in 1st person, I can be silly and I can address topics that mean something to me. The serious lenses are not monetized and not aggressively promoted. I think it's a choice on my part because to try to make money from them is against what I believe. Any, Squidoo is fun.

Change in focus

I have not rated or written on Helium in over a week. In fact, I haven't even logged in. My focus has been on Squidoo and I have been writing there. It's a problem because I can make money on Helium and it's needed for Christmas. I am just having more fun on Squidoo. I have made 11 lenses this month and I am really proud of several of them. I received an invitation to join the RocketMoms and am working on the challenge. Along the way, I have discovered that Squidoo rewards with points and silly bonus stuff that is just fun. Since most of my lenses are new, they are not earning. Even my older lenses don't make money because they are not monetized.

I'm not sure why Helium is not where I want to be. It really doesn't matter, I have to start next week because money is money. Maybe the break will be good.

Little by little, the Helium functions are coming back

Yesterday the inbox returned. Today, although we can't get into the zones or write any How-to's, the links to the ones completed are back on-line. That makes me happy since many of my how-to's are on Squidoo and other places where I write. The links have been dead for a week and that's not good. I was delighted to find them working again. Hurray!!!

Helium is my favorite place to write and I like hanging out there. Having the whole beta system down has been difficult. Computer issues can be devastating to all and I know that they have been working hard to fix the issues. My hats off to all the people who have worked so diligently to get at least this much working.

Update...the How to's are back up and I completed my Halloween one. Yeah! All we need back now is our groups.

How do you write about something when you don't know where to start?

We are having a reunion. We being Sue and Vicky and Scoti and Janet and me. It's been 40 years since we've all been together. I'm having trouble imagining this group of senior women sitting around a table when none of us are young anymore. And yet, we've started corresponding by email and apparently all still like each other.

I guess my confusion comes from the memory of all of us in high school being boy crazy and wondering what the future would bring. The future has come and gone, we've all gone our own ways. This reunion comes out of the blue and with it, all the insecurities that I had way back when. I find it interesting that those feelings are still there although I haven't felt that way in a very long time.

What ties us together? If has to be more than just being friends in high school. I think that it's because these people know the real me. They know the person I was before all the layers of growing up obscured the purer soul that I was as a kid. For I really believe that none of us change deep down inside. Forty years later, we are going to get together. While we have aged and formed different opinions, we are not meeting those strangers who have changed so much through the years but the ones we knew so long ago.

That is the draw of a reunion. And now that I have written this all down, I know what I want to write about. All I have to do is come up with a title for Helium. That's even harder than trying to figure out what to write. They always reject my titles.

Guess I'll write today

Helium beta system is still down and we're having to resort to Facebook to communicate. There is a vintage trailer rally coming up that I want to go to but money is tight. I think I will make a deal with Gary and make enough to cover the trip if we have enough to upfront the money. So much for the lofty goals, now I want something. I just might do better with a physical goal than some cerebral goal that is harder to achieve. I still would like to get to 300 non-creative writing titles to keep the 4th blue star. OK, I'm going to work.

Computer glitches

This is the 3rd day that the beta portion of Helium is down. It's annoying but it's also making my Squidoo lenses less effective. I have my how-to guides from Helium tied into them. Since they are part of the beta system, anyone checking them gets an error message.

I should be writing articles but they are not as much fun as the how-to guides. OH well, guess I'll go write something.

How to kill your Helium writing score

Helium is a great place to write but sometimes their selection of titles irritates me. If I were smart I would just leave them alone but I am really tired of people thinking that since I am now over 60, I am some frail old woman who can't think for myself. Believe it or not, I can still walk and talk. On top of that, I can still do all the things i could when i was younger. So the topic was "Flattering hairstyle for women over 60". The first article talked about faces changing shape as we age and other nonsense. My take is here.

This is going to kill my writing score and once posted, articles are there for good. Sometime it's just important to me to state what I believe is the obvious. If the title had been about flattering hairstyles for teens, it wouldn't have mattered. Right now, none of them are flattering and who decides anyway?

GRAND magazine names Helium in the top 12 websites for Grandparents

GRAND, The Online Magazine for Grandparents, has named Helium’s Grandparenting Channel one of the “Top 12 Websites for Grandparents”. The sites were chosen based on a number of criteria including content, ease of navigation, web traffic and the overall look and appeal.

Helium is honored to receive this award and proud of all our dedicated writers who work to provide the best content on the web. We especially want to congratulate Ann Hinds, Helium’s Grandparenting Channel Manager!

The Top 12 sites will be published in the 7th Year Anniversary Edition of GRAND published on Sept. 1 as part of the site’s National Grandparents Day celebration.

Essay, memoir, testamonies and reflections

Helium deleted one of my articles. Made me mad until I gave it some thought. It was sitting at 3 of 24. It didn't make much money but it was personal for me. It was essay: Death of a friend. When I wrote it over a year ago I'm not sure that I even knew that it was an essay title since I don't think I bothered to look. OK, so I rewrote it today and resubmitted it as Memoir: Death of a friend. Now it's sitting at 15 of 64. It has lost ground and there goes my creative writing percentage.

So I don't make the same mistake, I did a little research. This is stuff I should have remembered but didn't take into consideration when I started writing at Helium.

So here is my mini-refresher for me to refer back to next time I want to write something that is not fiction but is personal in nature.

Memoir is a personal tale, with dialog and description like an autobiography.

Essay is written from a personal point of view. A short literary composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author.

Testimony - A Testimony is something that comes straight from your heart, and tells people what you believe in.

Reflection - Reflections lets us analyze our experiences. It is not autobiographical although it is built on a personal experience. This lets us reflect on the event and make connections.

Now that I think I have what I need, well, I am not going back through my articles to see which ones might be incorrect. They can delete them and I will simply update them and reissue. Still, I am very sad about my creative writing score that took a dive.

Interesting day - Helium is creating a book that will be sold on Amazon

Got an email that said that my article was one of several chosen for a new book. It says that the book will show me with a byline, photo and bio. This is very interesting.

My article "Using writing prompts to defeat writer's block" just received 3969 hits on StumbleUpon. That's pretty amazing. I just made more money on one article in three days that I have on the rest for one month.