If you have not joined the literary ranks by writing your story yet, now is the perfect time. Why not make it one of your resolutions to write a few words every day? Don't jump in at the deep end and risk getting yourself bogged down, take it steady, little and often is the key to staying focused and maintaining enthusiasm when first starting out.

Short stories are a great way to launch your writing career, pick a favourite subject ie a pet, your holidays, a special day at work or a strange/amusing incident etc. etc. - there's a never ending list!
Write a brief plot, personalise your characters, maybe add a theme (honesty prevails sort of stuff), write down a running order and your half way there. The beauty of short stories is that they are short and can soon be discarded if things take a turn for the worse. They allow the writer to practise with words, use suspense, humour, sadness and all the other emotions necessary to story writing.

Another ideal first venture is to write a review or an article, the very backbone of the Internet is comprised of articles and reviews. If someone breaks wind, within a week it has been reviewed and some expert has written a series of articles on it! Have a look around the net for reviews and articles you'll see exactly what I mean. If you have your own website or blog the writing of reviews and articles with a link back to your site can have a very beneficial effect on your traffic, something worth bearing in mind believe me! That aside it is also a fantastic way to develop your writing skills and gain confidence in your creative ability.

Writing an article is dead easy, pick a subject you know something about and proceed to tell everyone what you know! Don't be boring, try and make your writing jump off the screen, be controversial your the expert here! Perhaps the most important element is the title, this is what entices people to view your article, let's assume it's about cooking a steak for example:

How to cook the best steak!

7 easy steps to cooking the juiciest steak ever!

Which would you choose? No contest!

As you can in this small example the Title is your sales pitch

Creating stories for your children can be a fantastic and fulfilling experience, beware though for there can be few harsher critics than an alert six year old child!
Letting your ideas run riot in a fantasy world of dragons, talking animals or dancing bananas can the perfect way to free your writing shackles and let the juices flow. The only constraint is your own imagination, the more unbelievable the plot, the dafter and cheekier your characters the more the kids will be captivated by your story.

Children demand a happy ending, there should be pitfalls and tragedies along the way of course but the overriding theme of goodness overcoming evil should prevail most of the time. Imagine the scenario:

"Sammy the Salamander, his mother now gone, cried and cried. The angry crocodile still hungry, always hungry, was looking for lunch again". The end!

"Goodnight sweetheart so you in the morning"

"Night mum"

10 minutes pass.

"Mum mum I can't sleep"

Definitely not good!