For a long time every piece of writing I worked on had the word lull in it, I also liked writing about dusk, and metronomes. Now most of those words are gone from my work, even though I am still writing about the same topic.

One of my students said he can never write a story without starting with a character waking up, another said that she somehow manages to kill a character a chapter if she doesn’t stop herself.

One of the easiest ways to try and write about new things is to make it clear what you normally write about. Some people are not even aware of their themes or tendencies in their work.

For this exercise you are to write down all the themes and words that you feel like you use most often.

Then you have to come up with a theme or a plot, or a setting that has nothing in common with what you normally write about. Write for fifteen minutes.

After you are finished, review your work while looking at the list of themes and words that you tend to use. If you managed to use of those words or veer into one of those themes, either cut that part out or start over again.

Even if you never write about this new setting or theme again you have stretched your writing muscles in a new way.

Sometimes it is hard to get perspective on your work, having others feedback really gives you that. Their feedback can also help motivate you to finish writing in spite of stumbling blocks. Plus the fact that your getting the feedback of several people means that you are getting to hear different perspectives on your work.

If you have an undergraduate degree in creative writing you probably have already experienced a similar process in workshops. The students I teach often ask how they can continue the experience of workshop after school is over. I always tell them that there are no guarantees but there are some options.

If you already have a couple of writer friends you can try setting up an informal workshop at a coffee shop or one of your homes. When you are first starting out it is important to invite new people, so that you get to meet the friends of friends who are also writers. Not all writing workshops work all the time, so if you find out that you have the wrong mix of people be diplomatic about it.

Another way to find writing workshops is through bookstores. Many independent book shops have writing workshops that are free and open to the public, even if you only meet a few people whose feedback you value, that is a good start.

One of the best ways I know of finding a good writing workshop is attending continuing education classes in writing, either through a local university or community college. Often even if the class isn’t that good, it is inexpensive and after the class is over  you appreciate can create your own workshop with the fellow students you appreciated working with.

I also know of a friend who found her writing group through Craigslist. It worked out for her, but it was a tricky endeavor and I do not recommend it, even though it is an option.

Good writing groups are a gift that keep giving but they are hard to find, so don’t give up if it doesn’t work out the first time you try.

The Threepenny review also pays very well. They pay $400 per short story and $200 per poem. This is a good amount of money for even a print journal to offer its contributors. It is far more than most literary publications offer.

However, the Threepenny Review only reads submissions during the first half of the year. So if you want your work to be considered for publication you must submit before the end of June. Otherwise you will have to wait till January 2014 in order to submit again.

They also have a very quick response time. They generally respond to submitted work within a couple of days. Because of this, they do not read work that is simultaneously submitted elsewhere. You must submit your work to them exclusively. If they decline, which only takes a few days, you are free to submit it elsewhere.

While they are a print publication you can get a good feel for their magazine by browsing through the Reading Room on their website. In the Reading Room they post pieces of fiction, essays, and poems they particularly enjoy. Throughout the magazine they really seem to favor publishing work with clean, easy to read language, and that contains good ideas.

The short stories they accept are under 4,000 words, and they do not consider poems that are over 20 lines in length. They accept less then 1% of the work submitted to them for consideration.

The Threepenny Review has an easy to use online submission system, and also accept submissions through the post, but not through email. All work submitted electronically should be formatted into a .doc file or .docx file.

In conclusion you should submit to The Threepenny Review before they close for the year because they are respected, and they respect their writers by paying them properly for their work. You can visit their website here: http://threepennyreview.com/

Postcard Shorts publishes all genres of flash fiction on their website. The website is easy to read and navigate, and their archives are comprehensive. If you have a piece of flash fiction you want to get out in the world and don’t generally write flash this is a good place to start getting your work published.

They have a relatively high acceptance rate and like the idea of publishing writers whose work has never been published before. They accept almost 60% of the work that is submitted to them for consideration. So your work has a chance here, and if you have never been published before, sometimes a chance is all you need.

It is also nice to browse through the site and read old stories, because you don’t have to invest a lot of time in order to find out if each story is good or not. After all, they’re no more than 250 words.

Unlike most submission systems, Postcard Shorts encourages writing directly on the site. In fact, instead of a submission section they have a write your story section.

If you have already written the flash fiction and you wish to submit to them, you can just cut and paste it into the form. You then add your email address twice. After that, instead of pressing submit, you hit the button marked send your postcard.

Postcard Shorts will respond to you within a month. They do not allow authors to submit more then one story at a time and they are not interested in simultaneous submissions, so keep that in mind.

In conclusion Postcard Shorts is worth submitting to because it is an easy and fun process and a fair chance to see your work published.  You can visit their website here: http://www.postcardshorts.com/index.html