How do I start getting noticed as a writer?

[Steven J Pemberton]

I agree with Garth about starting a blog and/or sending your writing to magazines. But don't contact agents until you have something they can sell. An agent's job is to sell your writing to a publisher, not to tell you whether he might be able to sell something you haven't written yet. He has the knowledge to give an informed opinion, but in between selling stuff to publishers and sorting through the hundreds of new manuscripts he received that week, he doesn't have the time.