By Will Eichler
Adaptability is a useful skill for pretty much any profession, but in the case of writing, it may be the most useful skill someone can possibly have. Each new writing job is going to require a new style, a new voice, even a new vocabulary, and if a writer is unable to adopt those new sensibilities, then they will find their well of work quickly drying up. The first writing job I got was as a blog writer for a small company based out of Philadelphia, which I believe has now folded. It was a three month, unpaid internship during which I wrote a few posts about the college application and admissions process for high school students who were about to begin that stage of their education. Now, the main writing I do is still blogs, except now they’re in Next Page Ink, and they usually end up being various streams-of-consciousness about the difficulties of being a young writer. So, even while ostensibly writing in the same format, my style has still changed dramatically. My old blog posts were written more like infomercials, written in such a way as to ensure that the reader would connect with and easily understand all the information they were being given, now they are written in a much more personal style, taking my thoughts and putting them on the page. And I am still learning and trying other styles, whether it be writing copy for Next Page, poetry and fiction written for myself, or taking a grant writing class from my local community college. Each one is helpful, and there are plenty more things I want and need to learn so that I can improve and, most importantly, keep working.