by Maria C Collins

Created on: December 01, 2009   Last Updated: December 02, 2009

The New Year is a time to look both forward and back. We look back at the things we have achieved in the last twelve months and forward to the things we hope to achieve in the next twelve months.

Helium writers are no different to everyone else. They look back at the articles that worked, and the ones that didn't, they look back at the marketplace articles that sold and they look generally at their helium achievements over the last year. Helium writers look forward and set their goals for the coming year, too. How many articles they are going to write, how many they will submit to marketplace. How much their articles written total will increase by the end of the year? Helium writers also want to learn how to improve and hone their writing.

These seemingly impossible goals that helium writers set themselves at the beginning of the New Year are helped by the use of hard work, diligence and sheer determination. There are strategies that helium writers can use to achieve their aims and goals and become better writers.

I resolve to write regularly and at the end of the year I will have 350 more articles in my portfolio.

It would be lovely to be able to write many articles every day but every day life intervenes and it is not always possible. Also a writer may write 4 articles one day and not feel like writing anything the next couple of days and then write 6 articles the next day. This is a realistic target and one that you have a good chance of achieving.

I resolve to read regularly.

Reading informs writing and writers need to read. Reading definitely broadens the mind and inspires writers. By reading other writers' work, whether that work is fiction or non-fiction, poetry or prose, a writer experiences different ways of using language. Language is the writer's main tool in communicating effectively with readers therefore reading makes writers better at their craft.

I resolve to experience life.

The best writers have a great deal of life experience. Writers cannot write in a vacuum, they need experiences to draw upon. So keep in touch with life, family, and friends, go places and see people. So often the inspiration for writing comes from a snippet of conversation or an idea that grabs you out of the blue, or an incident that happens when you are doing something completely different to writing. Writers who do nothing but write get stale.

I resolve to open my mind.

A writer needs to constantly reevaluate his or her opinion and not be closed to other points of view.

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