Visit Writing.com. The URL says it all. This website offers a plethora of free writing activities, from sharing your own work to crossword puzzles and word searches to groups where writers can discuss their work with others. Writing.com also offers writing technique help, information about publishing and writers' blogs. Visitors can review writers, build a portfolio of writing and promote their work---all for free.
Many literary journals provide writers with a forum to submit their work and read the work of others. Hundreds of journals are listed at the websites for "Poets & Writers" magazine and "Duotrope's Digest." These sites link authors to reputable journals and magazines seeking writers' work. They often hold writing prompts and contests that writers can enter to earn prizes, money and publishing opportunities.
There are many prompt sites that help writers generate fun, fresh story ideas. These sites provide writers with a topic, phrase or concept that they can then write about. Visit the "Writers Digest" site for more prompts that allow writers to write their responses on the site's forums for others to read and critique. The Creative Writing Prompts website offers writers hundreds of prompts, all of which can be seen while hovering the mouse over a number. It is very simple to read, and the prompts are unique and inspiring.
Writers who want to share their work, opinions, ideas and reviews of others' work may want to start a blog. Blogs provide a great writing outlet and can be customized to fulfill the needs of the writer. For instance, Blogspot.com and Wordpress.com offer free blog hosting, complete with dozens of templates to choose from, and interactive widgets and the ability to create a readership. A blog can be used as a home base for a writer, as it supplies a place to put published clips, stories, poems and links.