by Donald Hancock

Created on: September 28, 2009

When I was in the first grade, I jumped for joy when I had a paper returned and found that it had a smiley face sticker applied to it. Such a simple reward was all that I needed to cause me to work even harder on my next assignment. And my work certainly improved.

Now that I am an adult, the smiley faces have typically become more sophisticated and have morphed into such things as money, prestige, promotions, etc. But the principle is quite the same. These things are simply my society's way of saying, you are doing a good job and this is our way of recognizing that fact.

But, even though I am much older than when I was in the first grade, I am still moved by the simpler forms of recognition just as powerfully as before. Helium does this very effectively! A gold star is not significantly different from the original smiley face. And yet I will work hours writing and reading the writing of my fellow authors in order to earn and maintain that gold star. In the process, my writing improves.

And the gold star is not the only form that the smiley face takes. There are badges of many descriptions that we get to hang on the wall of our about me den. There are congratulations that come from contest performance and other accomplishments.

Nor is money lacking from the rewards at Helium. I recently won a contest that added $15.00 to my earnings. It was, perhaps, the hardest money that I ever earned as far as the time involved. But I am almost as proud of that reward as I was when I received my Master's degree or my Realtor's license.

All of these rewards encourage us to do a better job in our writing. But perhaps nothing is such an encouragement as the experience of posting a poem or a short story in the evening at a position of 15 of 30 and waking up the next morning to see that it is number 1 of 30. Then, when someone sends you an email comment saying that a certain phrase in your poem was brilliant or that your short story warmed my heart, then there just aren't many smiley faces sweeter than that!

Nor are the incentives at Helium limited to that of motivation. There are so many kinds of help at Helium that it is hard to mention all of them. There are forums and zones and mentoring relationships. There are tutorials and even the wealth of writings themselves about any subject that you can imagine.

Writing to titles that we are unfamiliar with causes us to stretch our skills and do the research necessary to broaden our knowledge.

I found Helium from a high school friend (from 60 years ago) who sent me an email one day and said, I don't know where I got this site and I don't know why I am sending it to you, but here it is! I have blessed his name ever since that day! Helium has helped improve my writing skills far beyond what any advertising of this site could possibly proclaim.

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