Be versatile in your writing.

I’ve seen many writers struggle to write because they want to stick to one medium: short stories, poetry, etc. Some things just can’t be expressed in one way. Say you see a fight happen on the street. How do you write it? A vivid commentary, full of personal insight? In a letter to your brother overseas? How ‘bout in a poem, so that others can picture it just as easily as you saw it? There are so many different ways to say the same thing. Why not use as many as possible?

Using different writing mediums also helps develop your skill as a writer. Each way you write a story builds off the other. Soon you’ll find that that short story you wrote has even more imagery than your poem!