I took a 6 week course of one day workshops locally in 2004, which was enjoyable and gave me some useful experience and validation as a writer for the positive comments I received. After this I had 16 articles published in the International hobby magazine ‘Doll', but I couldn't help feeling there was something preventing me from completing my novel manuscripts.
In 2009 I started the A215 Open University Creative writing course.
- The course book and CD’s provided me with a wealth of useful exercises, information and practice through guided activities, which I found inspiring and stimulating.
- The course has facilitated my developing discipline of writing every day and for writing to deadlines and focused my thoughts about making my work more tailored to the publisher I have in mind.
- I loved the freewrite exercises which have been excellent for engendering ideas for prose and poetry. I found I enjoyed writing poetry and I really never ever thought I would!
- I would have appreciated more on writing synopses, as this seems as important as free writing for submitting one’s work to publishers, but found more information on this elsewhere.
- I believe I have definitely improved my creative writing skills. However, assignment results were frustrating for many of us and if, like me, you get an unapproachable tutor it is particularly tough. So it’s not advisable to take this course with the aim of getting good results, but rather to use it as a tool for exploring different types of writing and to discover where your own personal strengths lie.
I decided that each disappointment was like Stephen King’s rejection nail on the basement wall mentioned in his book ‘On Writing’. The moral being to keep on trying/practising and chalk each rejection up to experience. - One of my aims for taking the course was to learn how to juggle numerous subplots within a novel. Sadly, I felt the course materials did not really tackle this area to my satisfaction. However, from Internet searches I learned more about it. Something I can share in a future post.
Have you done a Creative Writing Course? Did it help you?
Excellent News, my Dad is out of the danger zone with his pneumonia. Thanks for everyone's well wishes and prayers. Thanks again for listening
Yes, I've done all sorts, from one day workshops to an ongoing, postal poetry course, to a self-help one via Stephen Fry's CD's of 'The Ode Less Travelled'. Poetry needs much understanding of the various forms I think, so it's not quite the same as writing novels or stories. It has more easily identifiable structures to be learned. But that still won't turn you/me into a poet!
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