by Morgan Drake Eckstein

Created on: May 20, 2009

Are there Helium articles that I should not have written? Yes, there are. Most, if not all, of the writers on Helium will answer this question in an affirmative. After all, writing articles that we later wish that we had left alone is part of the process of becoming a stronger writer; if you don't have any regrets, you are not trying hard enough.

And like most Helium writers, the articles that I shouldn't have written are easily located by me: they are buried deep at the back of my articles, both in ratings and earnings. Hopefully, they are seldom read by anyone else; they show a remarkable lack of skill and knowledge on my part.

Some of them were written before I realized that Helium is not a news site. They are articles that became old fast. Today I will resist the urge to write to any title that I think is a flash in the pan; when I started writing for Helium, I used to initiate such titles.

Others are articles in titles that need to be leapfrogged periodically, just because the related information changes. I should not have written to any American Idol titles; every year, they need to be updated, and I am not watching the show anymore. Yes, I regret writing those articles.

I should have left alone several political articles, especially in the debate section. Not only are my opinions unpopular, but I don't care enough to back up my statements with evidence, so my articles have suffered accordingly. Nor do I care to go leapfrog them later.

It is the reluctance to do the necessary leapfrogging that is a sign that I should not have written an article. If you have no intention or desire to leapfrog an article (if you can not see more than one possible article in a title) maybe you should think twice about writing to that title. In my case, these articles that I do not want to have to leapfrog have turned out to be some of my biggest regrets.

Another area that I regret some of my articles is the marketplace, especially when I was thinking in specific way: how do I make my article different and stand out from the others? It is good to think this way; it is bad when your article becomes too different as a result of trying to make it different from all the rest.

Have I learned enough to quit writing articles that I shouldn't? Probably not. After all, I am still writing. As I said at the beginning of this article: if you do not have regrets, you are not trying hard enough.

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