I wrote this for anyone who is thinking of pursuing art as a career, but the concept of diversifying your skills is true not only in art or writing, but in any profession. The more skills you have—the more opportunities you'll have.

When I was a young kid, my parents encouraged me to continue to work on my art. They also made it very clear that I would never make money as an artist. Fortunately, I've always been a bit hardheaded.

Though I've held a variety of jobs that had nothing to do with art, the majority of my employment has included art in one form or another. I've been a freelance artist and a screen-printing artist. I've painted pictures on the side of handmade baskets, and I've drawn caricatures of people at a water theme park. And I've worked with various forms of computer graphics.

There are artists who make a good living just creating art and selling it. However, to be successful you have to be skilled, talented and a bit lucky. The world of art is very competitive. Even though it is possible you could make a career doing nothing but the art you enjoy, the odds are you'll need to direct some of your creativity toward your skill set to be successful.

Diversify. Learn as many art skills as you can. Whatever you find interesting, research it and, if possible, develop skills for it. Drawing, painting, sculpting—these are all good skills to work on. Computers are wonderful tools for artists. Learning to use paint programs, create 3D models and renderings, or pretty much anything digital can be a great plus to your set of skills as an artist. Spend as much time as you can building your skills in various areas of art as you can. The more skills you have—and the better you are with them—the more opportunities you'll have to find employment as an artist.

Also, the more diversified you are in your subject matter, the better off you'll be. If all you draw are dragons and fairies, you might find it difficult to sell your art. However, if you draw horses, you can now include horses, unicorns and Pegasi (and any modifications for sci-fi or fantasy you wish to create). Add people and landscapes. Now you can create very detailed fantasy and sci-fi art. You've also opened up the possibility of being asked to create nature art.

The more things you can draw, the better your art will be. With a better understanding of the things you draw, you'll also improve on the details in your art. By expanding what you create and the mediums you use to create them, you improve your appeal to potential buyers and employers.

Remember, you should never abandon your art if you enjoy it. However, treat it as a skill among many to pull from so you have options when you enter the workforce. Those computer skills might be very attractive to an employer. And no matter what work you may be applying for, bring your portfolio (or at least have it nearby and ready to show) and always make it clear on your application and resume that you are an artist. You might be surprised how often art skills will help you find work.

As a teen ready for college I applied for a summer job in shipping at a screen-printing shop. I brought my portfolio with me. They hired someone else for the shipping job—I was hired as their new artist.

When I applied to my current job, I was applying to be a programmer. I got the job, but I have been utilized as the creative element in our IT department. I've worked on everything from magazine ads to web design. I create the proposals we bring to companies, and I work on the images that they use on-air and in their publications. Basically, if it needs to be drawn or digitally worked on, I get to play with it.

Back to the screen-printing artist job: the second day of work there, I had the screen printer teach me to burn the screens, set up the machines, and how to print the shirts. I learned everything I could about his work. That allowed me to do a better job creating the art and color separations for him to work with and also gave me skills I could use later in my life.

Of course, it is possible you might find a job you really like that pays well but has nothing to do with art. There's no crime in that. You can always continue to do your art for fun. I enjoy creating comic book, fantasy and sci-fi art at home. I also have enjoyed using words as my medium and writing about the art I've been creating for years. My art and writing skills have both served me well at work.

Always be open to learning new things. The more you know, the more control you'll have over your future. Diversity equals opportunity. But you'll only be as successful as the quality of your skills. Spend as much time as you can with your studies and developing your art skills. And remember—it's only a skill if you're good at it.

I received this joke in an e-mail:

A wife asked her husband, "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get 6." A short time later the husband came back with 6 cartons of milk. The wife asked him, "Why on earth did you buy 6 cartons of milk?" He replied, "They had eggs."

This made me think of something that happened with my sister when she was a young teen.

My mother asked my sister to make some hot chocolate. Her instructions were—pour the milk into a plastic measuring pitcher and then put it in a pot on the stove and turn on the heat. A short while later my mother found the pitcher in the pot—full of milk—melted nearly in half.

This story is a source of much humor in my family. But it also brings up a point. We need to think about how we phrase what we write.

How often have you read something and started to stumble over what was written, but couldn't really tell what was wrong with it? There's a fair chance the writing, though it might be properly written, is written unclearly.

I'm not saying the writing has to be in short clear sentences. A long sentence with lots of punctuation can easily be written clearly.

Just like the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, the best way to not confuse someone is to keep your thoughts separate. Using the above joke as an example, keep your eggs from your milk. The more subjects you put in a sentence the more confusing it is likely to be. The more times you change directions in a paragraph, more likely you are to slow the reader's progress through your story.

Remember to keep the clutter out of your writing and maybe it won't wind up being a joke.