Worth a thousand words...*
Ask any published author for their advice to budding writers, and chances are the response will be simple. Write. Put words on paper. Practice your craft, and then worry about the rest.
Writers write. This is the one true requirement for pursuing the profession. But the blank page is a daunting one, and ideas are not always a dime a dozen. Enter one of the coolest new online communities I’ve come across in a long time… 52Stories.net. The concept is simple and elegant – every week a new picture is posted, and anyone inspired by that image can write about it and submit their story (or poem, or song lyrics, or novel if desired) for publication on the site the following week. Readers are encouraged to give you comments about your submission – it’s basically an online writing group where everyone is writing about the same thing with wildly different results.
If you like to write, but need prompts or ideas, I highly recommend this site. If you simply just like to read, it is a fascinating glimpse into the variety of ideas that a single image can inspire.
*Or in my case, 3,350 to be exact…