I have a new direction

Yesterday I posted that I didn't know what to do with this blog. I gave some thought to deleting it but now I find myself in need of an all-purpose blog where I can take advantage of different blogging challenges.

Today I will write my reflection post for the A to Z April Challenge. When reading the post explaining the procedure, it mentions a new A to Z Challenge for road trips. I love road trips but if I am not doing California I need a place to play

I am still deciding if I want to change the blog name but for now it will stay the same. I'm much happier with the decision to keep it alive.

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.

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?

A collection of writing tips

This may be my favorite lens on Squidoo. I found all these tips on StumbleUpon and think that they are great. So, it is the featured item at the top of the blog. There is a lensrolled lens on the right that has even more information. No one can say they have writers block now.

Sold stock content today

Articles are bought from Helium by different companies. This is my second article sold. Helium pays us $5.00 so no one is going to get rich but it does up my monthly earnings and that makes me happy. It is even more gratifying when someone likes what you do and purchases it.

In the meantime, Diane contacted me about a Helium project that writes articles for a website. They are all beauty and fashion so anyone who knows me will realize that it's a stretch. Still, I can research with the best and am quite good at it. I emailed the Helium rep in charge of the project and hope that she will approve me. They pay slightly more.

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.

My thoughts on writing

Ever want to write but were afraid to try. This was a journey of self-discovery that has been challenging and the most fun I've had in a long time.