Google offers a great service through its Blogger platform.
Sometimes this is known as Blogspot.
Blogspot gives you a free place to host your blog, and you can even have as many blogs as you want under one account.
I have been using Blogger for about 3 years, and in that time I have probably started around 20 blogs.
Of course, most of them didn't go anywhere, but it gave me a lot of practice and experience in the world of web-publishing.
To start a blog on Blogger, the only thing you need is a Google account.
If you already use one of Google's other services, like GMail or Google Reader, then you already have a Google account.
Then you simply go to Blogger.
com and pick a title for your blog and a web address where you would like your blog to be hosted.
If you want to blog about your love of poodles, then your web address might be ilovepoodles.
blogspot.
com.
You also have the option of buying a domain name.
Google makes this easy to do, and it only costs $10 to set up.
For example, you might choose the domain ilovepoodles.
com.
After this initial setup, you choose a template (how you would like your website to look), and you can begin writing immediately! Even if you pick your own domain name you can still host your site for free with Google.
There are some limitations with Blogger, and lately I have begun to move away from them and design my own sites by hand.
But I never would have gotten to that point if I hadn't gained experience through these free tools.
So if you are at all interested in getting into web publishing, I highly recommend Google's Blogger service.