Try writing in a style or genre that is new to you.
What is it that you like to write? Do you prefer to write fiction? Maybe you like to lay out some nice prose in a poem. Whatever you prefer to write, you should try to stretch yourself.
If you prefer to write poetry, try to write a short story. If you like to craft a good story, maybe you should work on an article. You never know what you are capable of until you try. You might find something you like.
When I first got back into writing, I wanted to write fiction. My goal was to get some stories into magazines and then get a book published, fiction of course. I enjoyed writing fiction. I felt that I had a gift at storytelling. Most of all, I had no intention or desire to write non-fiction of any sort.
I was taking a course from the Institute of Children’s Literature. I had written a couple of stories that had gotten good feedback from my instructor. In the middle of the course, my instructor suggested that I give non-fiction a try.
I didn’t really want to, but I respected her opinion. I went through the course material for the non-fiction exercise and was surprised to see that it seemed interesting to me. I started the research for the project and as I got deeper into, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.
The trick I found was to write an article about something you wanted to learn about. One article I wrote about was the game Cricket. It’s huge all over the world, but in the US it’s not know at all. I learned a lot about the game and its history and passed that on to others.
The point is, you never know what you will like until you try it. Since then I have tried my hand at poetry. I’ve also come to realize that my gifts do not lie there. But I enjoyed trying it.
