This is the first in a series of articles by Helium members testifying to ways writing for Helium has helped them further their career and earning goals as a writer.

I’m Glory Lennon , and I’d like to share how Helium has helped me as a writer.

Well, that’s a no-brainer. I was an amateur, a complete novice who started writing a garden advice column for a dinky (and I mean dinky!) little town paper as a favor for the editor (The grandmother of my son’s best friend) who needed something to fill space.  It turned out to be more than filler after many people said they liked my writing. I thought I had something there.

When I found Helium I had already started several novels and had many short stories in my stash but I didn’t know what to do with them. Was Helium the place? I was skeptical but I posted one old garden column. It ranked very low so I figured I didn’t have what it takes to make the big time. Seven months later after reading many other Helium articles and learning what was expected, what did well and how to be a better writer I posted a second article, this time a short story. That did better and so I was hooked.

About 400 articles later I was contacted by the editor of a Canadian based indoor gardening magazine Maximum Yield, who was looking for a monthly contributor for their new USA edition. She had read some of my Helium articles on gardening, (my favorite channel, besides creative writing, and the one which has proven most profitable to me) and she liked my no-nonsense way of telling people how to garden. So, now my name is seen next to my articles in this beautiful magazine all over the USA and Canadian.  Shortly after that I was appointed Steward for the Tree and Shrub sub-channel at Helium’s Home and Garden channel.  Is that the big time?

For someone who never thought she would make a penny putting simple words together, who marvels every time she gets “fan E-mail” and is astonished to find editors willing to pay for her articles, I would say yes and Helium had a great big part of it, for sure and certain.

I love Helium and everyone there. It is a place where everyone is in love with the written word and is so willing to help and guide those starting out so that they in turn once they become better writers can do the same for other novices that show up at Helium. It’s an amazing and wonderful cycle and I encourage anyone who longs to write to start at Helium. There simply is no better place.

I know this is much more than you wanted but it had to be said. I’d be nowhere without Helium. Now I have a novel Violet’s in Bloom serialized in a zone too. Jim Bessey encouraged me to do it and so there it is. Now I’m kind of a novelist just like Charles Dickens, Alexandre Dumas and Henry Fielding all of which serialized their works. Imagine that!

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Thanks Glory! . If you’d like to share your story too, send your testimony, name and Helium About Me page URL to me at bwhitlock@helium.com.