These folks publish a quarterly publication consisting entirely of stories and articles that start with the same predefined first line. They accept submissions, and they even pay (a rather small amount).

The First Line: It all starts the same but….

Writing Fiction: How Many Pages Make a Novel?, or, more relevantly, how many words are in a novel?

(It depends on what type of novel, but the answer is here.)

Also, this looks to be a good writing resource/blog - run by former English teacher and writer Crawford Kilian.