1. Describe the smell of popcorn. The allure and memories associated with it.
2. Write a short history for a penny found in the shopping mall parking lot.
3. You name your pet goldfish, Ichabod. What's the story behind that?
4. Dragons are real. Three of them just appeared in your living room looking for...
5. Explore the world of cracked pavement. What stories are there in the wrinkles of tar we drive over?
6. Watch for little things lost along the road next time you're walking somewhere. How did they get there?
7. Write a cheerleading cheer for a high school sports team. (Use a real school or make one up).
8. You pick up a dime from the sidewalk. How does that change your day?
9. Write a note you would post around the neighbourhood for a missing pet snake.
10. Explain why garlic really isn't a way to keep the vampires away.
11. Write a grocery list from a dog's point of view.
12. If you had a robot housekeeper what would you have them do first?
13. How would you write an ad to sell laundry soap?
14. Out of all the non-eventful, ordinary days, which would you pick as your favourite and why?
15. Use your real initials and choose a new name for yourself.
16. Your parking meter has run out, what story do you think up to avoid getting a ticket?
17. Write a memorial service speech for a bug you squished.
18. You decide to start a community newsletter. What do you call it?
19. They say there are rocks in your head, what kind are they?
20. What's the idol outfit for a Barbie doll?
21. What was the last small thing you did for the environment/ green living?
22. Think of all the different ways a book can end up soaked in water?
23. Write about something really unusual spilled on your kitchen floor.
24. You win a free day to travel in a horse and carriage, what do you do with it?
25. A space alien visits you and asks for breakfast, what do you give them?
26. You get the worst service ever in a restaurant. What do you do about it?
27. You wake up, outside wearing a shower curtain and mismatched slippers. What happened?
28. Invent a new flavour of tea, something just barely drinkable.
29. You dream and are able to speak to insects. What do you talk about with them?
30. How do you get their permission to throw mud pies at people to win a game show?
31. Talk about chicken to a classroom of school kids.
32. It's a case of mistaken identity but how do you handle someone insisting you're someone else?
33. What's the weirdest thing you would eat on toast?
34. Think of a new way to reuse (repurpose) CDs/ DVDs instead of throwing them out.
35. Without looking in your closet, what are three items you could do without to declutter?
36. On a cooking show you have to create a designer sandwich. What do you make?
37. Come up with a creative use for a long chain of paperclips linked together.
38. Write a letter to a bird.
39. In one word, sum up the feeling of walking in the rain.
40. Write a speech for a puppet.
41. Hold an argument with an inanimate object.
42. You forget to put on your pants... but it's not the nightmare you expected.
43. Holding 500 helium balloon you discover you actually can rise into the air. What happens next?
44. Write a review for a book you didn't like. Find something uplifting for the author's feedback.
45. What's the worst typo you can imagine?
46. Write a "Day One" journal about living under the sea.
47. Create a riddle then see if anyone can figure out the answer.
48. Create a great female character for a video game. A real player, not a bystander with big boobs.
49. Write the life of a pair of bedroom slippers.
50. Think of a really creative way to gift wrap something, but stick to natural/ green living ways (no paper or plastic).
51. What is your favourite colour and why is it your favourite?

I'm writing a post about postcards on HubPages. I found a couple of links where someone had written about writing postcards. A nice idea. So here are a collection of tips for writing postcards.

Write about how you got there, the journey so far. Are you going by bus, driving yourself or did you fly in?

What was the first thing you did when you got into town (the city, etc.)?

Did you find a great place for coffee, a burger, breakfast..?

What are you doing right now. Literally, right at this moment?

Write about something that really stood out. A really funny, bad, silly, delicious, spontaneous event along your travels.

If you don't want to write at all, draw something. Illustrate your adventures. Use stick figures, draw cartoon characters, or an all out great masterpiece.

Finish off with the traditional "Wish you were here" or something far more stylish and personal.

From Slouching Somewhere:

• First, pick a postcard. Pick one that's unexpected--from the shape to the image.
• When you write about the place, write beyond what's on the photo.
• Write about the food you ate.
• Throw a little bit of humor in it if you can.
• Write about a place the postcard recipient knows little of. Add details.

via How to write a postcard « slouching somewhere.

Working as an artist, of any kind, can be isolating and sad with hints of rejection and self doubt. Give yourself a break, look up now and then and find good things to inspire and keep you going.

1. Find 3 good things every day, whether they are experiences, or objects, or both. Find a way to use them in art.

2. Make everything special. Embellish your life.

3. Look for Fairy God-mothers and Angels. Be ready for experiences that will delight and surprise you.

4. Play more often.

5. Look for the smiling faces.

6. Wish everyone a happy life.

7. Find something to love about where you are everyday.

8. Make art everyday.

9. Create time for yourself.

10. Honor thy grandmothers as much as possible. (Of course grandfathers need honor too, but historically and culturally we are a little weaker in the honoring grandmother side of things.)

11. Play with the grandchildren as much as possible.

12. Create beauty with what you have on hand.

13. Make art with friends. Make art as gifts.

14. Create a list of secrets for a happy life and pass it on.

via - 14 Secrets for a Happy Artist's Life.

Today when you talk about personal websites what do you first think about?

Not so long ago people would think a personal website was a page (or a full site) they built on a free web host service like Geocities, Tripod, AOL or their own space on the ISP (Internet Service Provider) they were paying to connect to the Internet. Geocities was one of the best places to have a personal site then. There were good options and features and you could be part of a large community or the bigger community of all of Geocities too.

Not much point in talking about it now. Geocities is gone. Bought by Yahoo and later closed down. As for the rest, they are mostly full of abandoned personal websites. If you search you can find them. But, it's like wandering around the ruins of a ghost town now.

Your personal website can be anything: a blog, an online journal, a photo blog, a podcast, a wiki community or your own hand-made HTML site. Once you have an idea for the site, the next thing is to choose your media - the method to your madness. Build your web empire, but decide on how it will be constructed and where.

What's Your Online Experience?

Have you ever run your own site? Yes, a personal blog. Yes, an online journal. Yes, a photo blog Yes, a podcast. Yes, a microblog. Yes, a wiki community. No, but I'd like to. No. I don't want a personal site. No, I don't want a web presence.

Build Your Own Personal Site (with HTML)

Of course, you can build your own site, from scratch using HTML, without using a service like Geocities to give you a start and some basic elements to cut and paste. Most people rush into starting a blog, rather than working with the nuts and bolts of HTML and creating a site. But, it is a great experience. You will learn a lot and feel pretty good about having built something. Your personal site can be as simple or complicated as you want to make it.

Pick up a book about HTML, CSS and PHP code, or something simpler for the personal web site creator. Once you get the hang of it, creating a personal site is really empowering and you really do get the feeling of being active and a real part of the online community - not quite an expert geek but for sure qualified to be among the geeky realm.

Of course, you aren't alone among the code with nothing but a blank Notepad in front of you. There is very good software which can get you started and help you figure out what goes where. Most of the site building software will show you a version of your site as you work on it. Microsoft has recently made their Web Expressions software free. Pick up the Design software too so you can create your own images/ graphics for your site too.

I know almost no one will go this route when creating their personal web presence. It has lost popularity due to the quick and easy methods of just putting up a blog, but there really is nothing else like it.

A personal site doesn't have to be extravagant. This is my personal domain, thatgrrl.ca. I used to have more on this site, but now it is an index to my other sites as my mighty web empire grew.

Online Journal

LiveJournal has done a better job of hanging on than most of the other old personal web places. It began as a site for online journals/ diaries (back before people were calling them blogs). You can still create a site there, free. Or buy more features, options and space for your site if you want them. LiveJournal has a good community, a good taxonomy if you want to find people by their interests, hobbies, careers, etc. Even after all these years, I would still suggest LiveJournal as a good place to begin your personal site and start dipping into social media.

I don't use LiveJournal a lot, but I have a personal account which you can see as an example.

Personal Weblogs

Blogger was one of the first and simplest places to run a personal blog site from. Google bought it at one point. For awhile it seemed to be sink or swim, but someone took notice of it again and began updating it, giving it new features and allowing people to use the Blogger software as a CMS to run their site on their own domain even. You might find yourself on a Blogger site and not even know it. They have broken out of the original restricted design. But, you can still see traces of it, especially when you comment on a Blogger site (if you don't have a Blogger/ Google account yourself).

Blogger is still free and you can do a lot with creating a site and using social media. I would suggest Blogger first to someone who wants to start their first personal site. The instructions for getting started are very good. The service is well supported by the company and the community. You can easily find WordPress fanatics who will put Blogger down (taking it too far) but the fact is, you can run Blogger and it is still fairly simple to make custom changes to your template (theme) and the code itself if you want to add features or change the look and workings of your site.Don't rush into being an elisties snob about Blogger, it is a really good starting place for a personal website. A free Blogger.com site will give you more flexibility than a free WordPress.com site.

Note: If you pay someone for a custom blog (Blogger) template, make sure you are paying for more than just a background and header image. A lot of people offer services as a blog designer for Blogger. Not all of them are selling original creations you couldn't just do yourself, for no cost at all. However, if you really don't want to DIY, try Etsy as a starting place to find blog designers.

Community Sites

Another option for creating your own personal website, is a wiki. A lot of people have not heard of wikis, but they will know Wikipedia. Did you ever wonder about the name? Wikipedia is intended as an online encyclopaedia But, a personal wiki is about your own topic focus and the resources you can bring or find. However, you do not work and maintain a wiki alone, it's a community effort.

A wiki is like creating a mega site about a chosen topic. Often a personal hobby, interest or something you know a lot about and want to share your knowledge and resources with the online community. The idea is to gather others to add their own content, resources and knowledge too. If you want to get deep into a topic and find others who share your interest, starting a wiki is a good choice. A wiki has many branches of information stemming from an index - it will also be searchable.

However, you will have to use social media and online promotion to bring people in to find your wiki site. (Not so different from any other site, but people seem to think once they build it other people will just come, show up magically). it can happen, but that takes a lot of time and you could get feeling pretty lonesome and discouraged before they find you.

WikiWikiWeb - Where the wiki originated.

Microblogs/ Social Media Sites

Then there are the tumblog sort of sites. Tumblog is another word for microblogs. These are not meant to be full service sites. Instead the focus is on short entries to the site and using social media to share your entries, photos, text, quotes, etc. I like Tumblr and Twitter, but there are a lot of them out there. If you choose Tumblr the only downside I have ever found is the change they made to commenting on Tumblr sites.

Whatever their reasoning you can't comment without using extra, outside software. The site owner (that would be you) sets it up. Not a tricky thing to do, but I've never understood why it was changed. Anyway, the focus of a microblog is shortness, brevity and sharing content. If you don't want a personal diary sort of site - just quick updates and keeping up with friends, consider a microblog.

You may not think of Twitter as a blog or personal site. It's become very fast paced, more like a forum than a site. But, Twitter is a microblog. A very successful microblogging and social media site. You can find me on Twitter.

Get started Using Twitter.

Photo Blogs/ Sites

Next up, photo sharing. You may not want to write much at all. If so, take a look at Flickr. You can post your photos, illustrations and videos too. Free, up to a set limit, or get a paid account and post as many photos as you like. I use Flickr because I like the groups. You can upload your own photos, add descriptions, give them a title beyond the one the camera spits out with them - then look for people on Flickr.

It is amazing how many communities/ groups there are on Flickr. You can find a group started for anything you can imagine. If you can't find a group, you may just need to search again with a different phrase, because everything under the sun is at Flickr. However, Yahoo took over Flickr, made changes people didn't like and a lot of people abandoned their accounts. Some are back, some are not as active, some have left groups started and not maintained. But, Flickr is not a ghost town. I'm there myself.

Another clever and creative way to use a photo site, like Flickr, is to make and show off an art journal. All your own art can be scanned (or take a photograph of it) to create an image file. Then the image can be loaded to your photo blog. You can create your own art gallery with your personal creations and a commentary about each of them.

Get started using Flickr.

Podcasting

Podcasting is another way to create your personal presence online. Instead of images, podcasting is all about sound. You may have some images loaded for eye candy, but the focus is on sharing your music or giving your own web radio show. You can create a podcast and have a live show, or store the files online and let people run them in whatever order (chronological or subject) they choose. BlogTalkRadio is one site which offers the set up for running your own live podcast.

I haven't done much podcasting. I listened to a friend who was a professional DJ and put on her own live radio show through a site for an online game, Kingdom of Loathing. Also, I assisted Bev Walton-Porter with finding guests for her live show. I was a guest on one show too.

If you are interested in creating a live show, the world is your oyster. Get out there and do it.

Social Interaction

Content Curation Something a little new still is a merge between photo sharing and social media, content curation. The important thing with using content curation is to remember you want to keep the links you share looking like something someone else will read. Don't shortcut and leave extra text, use an image which doesn't match the content and don't scrimp on writing a little description or note of some kind.

A content curation site, like Scoop.it, gives you a lot of social media focus. If this is really what you want, to build yourself up in Twitter, Facebook and the other social communities, content curation is the highway on your path. Don't forget, content curation is very visual - often it is the image which people will 'read', even before the headline. Once you create your quick post to the link you have chosen send notice to Twitter (my favourite) and the other social media sites where you will be building up followers due to your great links through content curation and you own personal ideas, thoughts, suggestions, research and knowledge on the topic you are focusing on.

Originally published on HubPages. Laura has been writing online since 1996. Her first content was sold to a print zine. She is a solo publisher of her own sites.

This was one of the ecourses offered at Suite101 University. The site is taking down this section, sometime soon. I wanted to keep the content available. It's well worth keeping.

Professional Writing By Sara Quest Introduction Do you long to call yourself a professional? By taking this two-week course, you will be. This course will provide you with enough resources and contacts to keep your career as a professional writer going long after you've stopped reading. The rewarding career is about to begin: you will be creating your own free websites, which will be nothing short of an online party for professional minded writers. The site will reveal the services you aim to offer future clients. This is an efficient and necessary avenue for displaying and updating services, and for allowing potential clients to view them. But let's not forget "the basics:” we will explore facts pertaining to copyright and "use rights," keeping abreast of trends via leading sources like Editor & Publisher and Writer's Digest, and learning "the write etiquette" when it comes to dealing with clients. You will learn ways to hone skills through intimate study of professional writing samples, from Writer's Digest insiders to professional author websites, and you will learn how to "imitate the best,” finding new ways to develop your own successful style! Additionally, through examination of public demand, you will be able to incorporate into your personal agendas a knowledge of which writing sells. You will soon discover your writing is worth more than pennies on the professional pay scale, and top local and national editorial contacts will gather under your belt within two weeks’ time. Through our study of top professionals and trends, you will gain resources that will allow you to produce resalable work able to pass tests of time. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from learning these quality ways to market work so you can sell to markets over and over again, for many years to come, allowing you to gain quality contacts and higher pay. Once you've learned how to become a polished writer / businessperson, you will have begun your prosperous path as a professional. The popular notion that "it is hard to break into the writing business" is mere fallacy. Editors are ALWAYS willing to read writers' offerings, and they will accept them if they are clean, concise products appealing to the overall public. All you have to do is take a two-week course that shows you how. So rejoice, fellow writers! You are about to learn everything you need to know in order to write for a living! What Students Are Saying... Informative, refreshing, inspiring. I'm ready to tackle the writing world again A quick, convenient way of getting more familiar with a topic. Prompt instructor feedback the most useful feature along with the suggested links, which have already proven helpful. Anyone looking to start a new professional writing career, or enhance the one they already have, can benefit from this course. Hilary Williams Thank you Sara…it’s been such a pleasure to take this course, and I just know we’ll all be better writers with fewer rejection letters after taking it! Jodi Wetherup

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