by Laurie Childree

Created on: March 04, 2009   Last Updated: March 03, 2010

Helium's writing contest are designed to encourage competition. There are those that participate in every contest faithfully and those that have difficulty finding a contest to write to. Understanding the contest and placing in a paying position are sometimes difficult to achieve. Those that place in the contests at Helium have to stay motivated, but how do you stay motivated for the Helium writing contest?

At first glance with up to twenty titles to choose from and multiple contests running at once the contests at Helium can seem overwhelming as you attempt to find a category in which to compete. Even when the category is chosen there can be trouble maintaining motivation as the contest board constantly changes and ratings turn into a roller coaster ride. The urge to give up can begin to get overwhelming when you fall off of the leader boards and begin to think there isn't a chance to get back on them.

The contest categories are posted and there are several titles under each. The first thing to do is to pick a category that you find interesting, either requiring research or your personal knowledge to write about. The more interesting you find the category the more likely you are to stay in the competition instead of dropping out because the subject matter bores you.

The more articles that you find under a contest category the more likely you are to either gain an enormous number of points to place or fall off the board in the roller coaster ratings. Each title should be one that you can write a knowledgeable and quality article for. While the minimum length should be at least four hundred words you want to make sure that the article covers the subject entirely.

Alternating between articles that only take you a few minutes to write and those that require a longer period of time and research will keep you from giving up on the contest entirely on the first day that you participate. Taking a break between article postings to rate will help to ensure that you aren't doing the same thing over and over and can give you an idea of other areas you might want to write to as you attempt to compete in the contest.

Remembering that the contests are currently running for two weeks and being rated for a week afterward is important. The articles that you wrote take time to go through the rating process and checking each one carefully for grammar, spelling and punctuation issues prior to posting it will help you to resist the urge to do leapfrogs too soon in the contest for these minor errors. Waiting until the close to the closing of the contest or just after when no new submissions can be entered will help you to have a more accurate picture of where the article falls within the ratings system and allow you to tweak the article and increase your chances for a good ratings.

The main thing when it comes to staying motivated with the writing contests at Helium is to remember that articles take time to go through ratings. Even the best articles sometimes fall to the bottom and that you have to rate to help the articles move through ratings.

Learn more about this author, Laurie Childree.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.