Have you attended a writing course?
Have you used a professional literary service?
If the answer to either or both is yes, then was it a worthwhile experience?
Was the course a worthwhile experience?
Have you attended a writing course?
Have you used a professional literary service?
If the answer to either or both is yes, then was it a worthwhile experience?
Was the course a worthwhile experience?
I have attended several writing courses, on different subjects or genres in three different countries and have always found them useful.
If nothing else, courses get your ideas flowing (often on something that has nothing to do with what the course is about, oddly) and accelerate your writing rhythm. At least in my case. They are also very useful to settle you into a writing discipline, which was a problem for me.
I agree that writers' clubs are important, though in my experience their main use is psychological support and general guidelines, rather than precise feedback on an on-going work. Or many it's just that mine is too busy.
But whether you chose to "go professional" with a course or stay within the more convivial atmosphere of a writers' group, the main thing is not to be isolated with your own writing taking up all of your brain.
Sharing your work makes you see it in a new light and offering feedback is also rewarding, especially when you see that your advice has been taken into account. It's one of the most rewarding validation as a writer. You may not be published, you may not even wish to be, but your experience of writing is still valuable; at whatever level you have gained an expertise in your craft.
And meeting other writers is the best way to make a friend for life. Two and counting...
I attended the Creative Writing Programme, then run by Sussex University, which started with using your own experiences as a source of fiction and went through point of view, characterisation, the structure of a novel etc. These courses then moved to New Writing South, Brighton. There, I followed two years of Advanced Writing Workshops, led by Susannah Waters. These were very good, though I agree with Deb that, once you've covered the basics, perhaps the most useful thing is to have a group of writers with whom you can exchange views and review each other's work.
Hi Adrian,
I have attended a number of workshops/course from regular meetings with other local writers that last a couple of hours to a summer school course at the University of Edinburgh to a Grad Dip Professional Writing (and now I'm completing my PhD) at Deakin University, AU. I've found most of the things I've attended worthwhile for one reason or another (sometimes that is simply the networking/sharing aspect of having writers, usually so solitary, in the same room at the same time which provides the opportunity to share what you're going through with like-minded folk.
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Deb