Calling All Readers!

I NEED YOUR HELP!

It's late at night (again) and I was going to put another Dilbert strip on with some commentary (again) but then my mind started working (finally! It works!). I got a crazy idea (I like ideas in the "crazy" flavor) and I want your opinion on it.

As some of you may know, I like writing. It may not be perfect grammar all of the time, but I enjoy it! One of my lifelong goals is to write a book. I like science fiction books, so maybe I'll try working my right brain a little bit. I also like the self-help/self-improvement books, so that's always a possibility. So I don't know what kind of book, but a book WILL be written before I die! All great journey's begin with a single step, right? Well my crazy idea is my single step in my journey to writing my book. 

Do you know how people got their writing careers started? (Don't worry. I'm gonna Google myself to death on that one.)  :P

Do you know anything about becoming a freelance writer? 

Do you have any writing techniques that have really helped you? I could just start writing and writing and hope I get something out of it, but I want to apply it more. 

What kind of stuff do freelance writers do? I figure they'd have to be in a niche of some sort (writers interested in computers should send articles to computer magazines, etc.). 

Do newspapers accept articles written by anyone? Or magazines for that matter?

The point is, I want to write. I find a lot of things interesting and worth writing about, but I'm not motivated enough to write about random stuff if all I do with it is save it on my computer and never do anything with it. 

Any advice would be most helpful!

THANK YOU! 

P.S. Thanks for tuning in to my life. I'll try to keep it interesting so I have exciting things to write about. :)