I asked a similar question of a writer friend recently (though I am interested in non-fiction). They told me something that I already knew, but was unhappy to hear nonetheless — that the start of one’s writing “career” will inevitably involve a fair bit of writing into the void; even for publications that are accepting open submissions, it’s useful to have an established presence so that someone who can read more of your work and get a sense of what you’re about. “Established presence” in this case may mean a blog/substance that has little to no readership, even though putting your writing out there when you have zero platform can feel pretty demoralising. It is good practice though, and the more your body of work grows, the easier it is to make a sort of dynamic portfolio of the best of what you can do.

One takeaway from my friend was that a lot of opportunities arise from word-of-mouth interpersonal stuff: when people think of you as a writer, they are more likely to suggest your name to publications that may be looking for writers (which is why having an established presence can be so useful).

I don’t have platform specific advice unfortunately.

I was curious and I tried to find your poetry within your Lemmy profile history. I saw some posts with drawings (for example, the rabbits trying to rescue the rabbit from the magician, the horse chess piece instructing a tower piece on how to arrive somewhere, and so on). They’re really nice and smart.

As for where to publish, I’ll tell what I perceive as I’m someone who sometimes write, too (although I probably differ on genre and styles). I ditched all the mainstream social platforms, so the “biggest” social platforms I’m currently participating are Mastodon and Lemmy (and as from yesterday, I’ve been navigating in Geminispace, but I guess it’s not as big as fediverse, yet).

Interestingly, Lemmy is the platform I get to interact the most, even when Mastodon has way more users. It seems, to me, that Lemmy is more socially active than Mastodon.

But there’s a catch: Lemmy often focuses on what we’re doing right now, discussing things, exchanging ideas and informations. While there are a few communities focused on sharing art, they don’t seem to have the same activity and visibility as, let’s say, Ask Lemmy, Shower thoughts, News, Technology and similar communities.

I saw people recommending Writefreely and Plume. I created accounts on those platforms and tried to publish some texts over there, but I had no relevant interaction whatsoever. They have even fewer users than Mastodon and Lemmy, however, they’re more appropriate for publishing poetry, because they have UIs better made for them.

Perhaps the visibility also depends on the genre and style. I write about eerie, existential and dark things, so I guess it’s not something that’s expected to have much of a reception. People often seek “good vibing” content, especially “funny” content (that’s why memes perform the best). It’s a factor for you to consider asking yourself: “How many people would resonate with my texts?”

That said, I guess you don’t really need social media accounts, you need a public that will resonate with your works and will read them and interact with them. This public can be from fediverse depending on your genres and themes. Publishing the text across different platforms can improve their visibility. Maybe we, as Lemmy users and writers/artists (although I consider myself neither a “writer” nor an “artist”), should seek to post more on Lemmy communities focused on art sharing in order to balance the main Lemmy feed.

In all seriousness, visit your local library and ask them about it. Most library systems work with local authors to promote their work and regularly hold meetups and workshops for writers. Many cities have local zines, publishers, and anthologies. By getting to know your local writing scene, you can find opportunities to do readings of your work, have works published in collections, and so on.

Good points from other users.

You’re kinda asking the wrong question.

Where to start writing? Wherever you are when you write.

Where to publish? Seems to be what you’re looking for—

You’re likely an unknown author. So you are going to have to figure it out yourself In terms of marketing

Do you just want your stuff out there? You can put it almost anywhere

Do you want people to find you? Then you’ll need to market yourself (and yes I just threw up a little writing that)

It will be up to you to get people to find and read your stuff , sorry but yeah you mostly have to market yourself

So yeah put your page in there when you post your content here, and blue sky, and everywhere. Make a podcast of you reading your stuff, make it easy to share so new people can discover you.

Self published books and print on demand— worked for Andy Weir (the Martian) and Hugh Howey (Silo) and 50 shades of gray

Good luck

A surprising number of writers just hone their craft on Ao3 (archive of our own) and then self publish on Amazon. A friend of mine did that and while she doesn’t make a ton she does get a continous trickle of sales. Amazon is a big back of dicks but it is the marketplace unfortunately.

I just searched for “submit short stories” and this was the first three results.

https://thewritelife.com/where-to-submit-short-stories/

https://blog.reedsy.com/guide/short-story/where-to-submit-short-stories/

https://writers.com/short-story-submissions

If you want to stay within the fediverse, maybe have a look at federated blogging/publishing platforms like WriteFreely or Plume. (Both are also selfhostable).

Edit:

WriteFreely: https://writefreely.org/
Plume: https://joinplu.me/

So I assume you’re asking where to publish your writing to start earning money with it?

Because to “start writing” like answering the question in your title, you just need a pen and some paper or a keyboard and computer or anything similar and start putting words in them.

And it also seems like you’re already publishing it. Something is missing from your question.

I dont know much about writing stories/poetry, but for publicity in fediverse (I assume you meant in fediverse too) here would be my response:

Lemmy is good but the main part of fediverse is the mastodon clients (twitter equivalent). Most of the users use a mastodon instance.

So posting to mastodon and lemmy seems like a good option. Although mastodon will limit post text length. Better to repost or boost it from lemmy to mastodon.

Literally just ask chat.gpt to generate a list of free websites and forums to publish your stuff to and voila you’re off to the races.