Back to School I Go

[WritesWithUnicorns]

Since I have no formal educational background as a writer I decided to take a course. The University of Michigan has a free online creative writing course. You can get a certificate when you finish the course, if you pay a fee, but free works for me.

The course is through Coursera. Its called Write Your First Novel. If you are interested you can enroll here. https://www.coursera.org/learn/write-your-first-novel

The teacher has an approach that I resonate with. He believes that the best way to learn to write is to write. The class material is structured in such a way that by the end of the course the student will have finished their first 50,000 word novel.

Did my first assignment today. Was easier than I thought it would be.

 

[ThinkerX]

No creative writing classes for me, either. Hardly any 'how to write' books for that matter. And my English grades back in the day were...mediocre.

Just lots of time behind the keyboard. And this little maxim: 'I try to write as entertaining of a story as possible' - which is a rough paraphrase of a quote by a seriously old school 'Great.'

 

[pmmg]

I would do it, but I am already into a project. They'd have to accept that my next 50k wont result in a finished work.

 

[WritesWithUnicorns]

No creative writing classes for me, either. Hardly any 'how to write' books for that matter. And my English grades back in the day were...mediocre.

Just lots of time behind the keyboard. And this little maxim: 'I try to write as entertaining of a story as possible' - which is a rough paraphrase of a quote by a seriously old school 'Great.'

Hey, everybody has got to figure out what works for them. For me this course offers a structure to work within and a chance to be graded by and to grade my fellow students. Hopefully I can encourage and help them along in their journey.

I'm happy and i'm growing. And I fully intend to keep plugging away on my keyboard. it doesn't matter how entertaining my stories are, they won't fly if it aren't well crafted. So I'm honing my craft.

 

[WritesWithUnicorns]

I would do it, but I am already into a project. They'd have to accept that my next 50k wont result in a finished work.

Hey I get that. But since I stalled out, mostly because of missing skills I thought I would put my first book on hold and do some creative learning.

I think you would be a wonderful addition to this course, especially since it is so heavily dependent on peer reviewing of the writing exercises. I just know for me, this is something I need to do.

 

[skip.knox]

I'm glad to hear there's peer review. My best writing training was in grad school, learning to be a historian. That's where I learned all the basic skills outside of actual storytelling.

My best education in storytelling came from a critique circle at our local library. I feel fortunate to have stumbled into that because I was there for the first meeting and it has since lapsed so, any other time and I would have missed it completely. Critiquing the work of others was invaluable to my own growth as a writer. More useful, indeed, than the comments of others on my own work. I hope you will have much the same experience.

As for the books and articles, they've had their place. Most often, I'll find something is useless at one point, but has something to offer at some later point. So I do keep them around and even pick up a new one every so often.