Finally, once established, a Web site can provide secondary income to your actual writing. You might decide to publish a weekly column and set up an e-mail list of subscribers. With enough subscribers on your list, advertisers WILL want to pay you to reach your audience. Or you get a book accepted by a publisher . well of course you'll want to sell a few copies from your site.

Of course, not everyone has Web design skills, or planned a Web presence in their budget (which, in my case was about $0.00). But do not be deterred. You don't need to register a domain name though it does help. A domain name looks better than a long URL and you have an e-mail address that stays same.

You can also choose to use space on another domain name -- often a far cheaper option than getting your own domain and paying server-hosting fees.

If you really, really can't put an HTML page together (and with software packaged with major browsers, it's easy to make simple pages), consider trading services with a budding designer. Only other night on an e-mail list I subscribe to, a Web designer requested help with writing a press release. She couldn't afford to pay anyone to write it, and would happily have traded HTML services for a well-written release.

A new masterpiece began when next journal beckoned. I would tell myself this was "it": story that would be published (I could justify any expense for an inspiration fix).

It was last spring I had "Aha" moment. It came in Wal-Mart. Shopping with my 7-year-old daughter -- a blossoming writer -- she insisted I buy her a brightly covered journal.

"Why do you want another one?" I asked. "You've got a ton you haven't written in."

"I know," she said, "but I need it to write a story."

"It doesn't matter what you write on," I said, sighing at extravagance. "If you really want to be a writer, anything will do."

"Aha!" I thought, hearing my own pithy wisdom. I bought her journal -- she'll learn her own lessons, her way -- and came home. Grabbing an ordinary legal pad, I wrote a piece with an ending, which finally made it to publication.

It didn't make me famous, but it was a start. I proudly cut out clip -- and stuck it in my journal.