So you already know all the good ones are taken, but now what do you choose? It's not recommended you grab a .org, or .net, people just don't remember them as well as .com. Hearing radio ads there's always obscure URLs being advertised with sometimes even misspelled words having to be noted by tha radio host. They lose business when that happens because potentially interested people don't bother checking if they have to give it a second thought. Lets say you want writingclique.com or something, when you advertise it by word of mouth it can be confused with writingclick.com.
EliteSkills.com is a poetry site, but since people link it as Elite Skills, instead of Poetry, when you search on google it's on page two for the keyword "elite" and page 8 for the keyword "poetry". Draw backs like these give competitors the edge without the effort. Of course, if you happen to get lucky finding a short domain name, the benefits may outweigh. Nearly all household words are taken and many buy and sell domains for a living.
You'll be glad you waited and did your homework. Some site even track deleted domains. Make a list of possible domains and wait on it. Being spontaneous is common and can lead to long term loss of potential revenue and visitors.
Yahoo offers their domains for $5. Even though their specials says for a limited time, it appears they have it at $5 more often than they have it at $9.99. Try not to get your domain name registered through your host. Many times the hosts have specials where they give you a free domain on registering. The truth is they buy it in bulk as cheap as possible from less than good domain registrars. You may have problems getting your domain if you have problems with them or just decide to switch to another host and all your advertising and hard work goes down the drain.
Theses are sites that offer free domain names, but rethink this. For $5 a year you can get a domain name. Say you eventually get a paid one, all the advertising on the free one didn't help towards your sites pagerank, it only fowards traffic from old site to new. The new site will start with a pagerank of 0 and you'll have to start building it up again. Check out our how to increase hits to your website article.