The thing we all must do - grind. It's fairly universal throughout any game but wotmud seems to offer less guidance than any mmorpg or other modern game you will play. If you're new you will blunder about uselessly until some nice person stops and helps you or you find help online. Below is a basic exp guide broken up by setup and areas.
Note: Regardless of class or setup, it is usually easiest to farm saplings until atleast level 10. This will free up a good amount of pracs to get you started as well as being the easiest and fastest way to level to this point.
10-30
The ideal setup for low level and solo exping - go dodge and find a pet and walk around exploring/killing. The majority of characters in today's mud have combo stats (16+ dex) and can go full dodge for exp. Depending on your class and availability to eq, you will need to decide on 1h or 2h weapons. Typically speaking, 2h weapons are better overall atm due to the pracs (only need to prac weapon and not shield parry) and general weapon balance. I&G longsword is a great weapon for a low level dodger and is common and not hard to find. BT spears are also quite good plus have the ability to charge which can add some speed to your grinding as well as break up the monotony. If you have combo stats, there really isn't any reason to not be dodge at this stage.
If you are abs, you are going to struggle a bit at this stage without help. If you can find an exp partner, things will go MUCH faster, especially if they are dodge. You will be doing more damage than your dodge counterpart, but you won't have any defense so mobs will almost always hit you and due to your low hps, this will result in you fleeing and regening a lot. This stage can be a pain for absers and the best method is to find a dodge or combo partner and then go slaughter trees.
Once you get your stats and some basic equipment, you'll need to find somewhere to exp. After farming saplings to level 10 or so, it is time to move on. The beauty in dodge is you are maximizing your defense so theoretically you won't be getting hit much. Ancient trees are going to be your best friends for quite a while. The best locations for a lowbie to exp in dodge are south Amador, Illian, Mirk and N. Mayene, and Spine. Keep in mind that you are most likely to run into trouble in Spine and it shouldn't be attempted until level 20+. Really, Illian trees are the way to go for exping a lowbie because of the relative safety (both from mobs and pcs) as well as the huge amount of trees available. When you first start out, you will be sticking to the single trees and maybe braving the pairs but staying away from the sets of three and four. As you level up and get stronger and your defense increases, you will be able to take on more stuff.
30-51
Pines. Maulers. Predators. Black lizards. With the implementation of pines, exp became much less of a chore and was easier/faster. If you were clanned. Assuming you don't have qps to issue, you have a variety of options for this stage. The big exp will all require an abser to tank and can be very good exp overall if done right. Spine, in particular, loads a lot of big exp as well as some trees, grasses, scorps, etc so you can just exp up and down it with a dodge/comboer and abser and get great exp. You can, of course, still stick to farming ancient trees but this will take a very long time. Some rogues stab aiel wise ones and other high level mobs for exp, as well.