Feel free to move to IMHO if any mods so desire…
I’ve been having one of those corporate claustrophobia Mondays, when I day-dream about being a self-employed writer holed up in my mountain cabin, pounding out a manuscript and ignoring phone calls from my editor.
The clouds of fantasy clear and the realizations that I’m actually an internet security drone with a Biology degree who can’t even keep a decent journal or blog start to sink in.
Well, none of that would matter, I tell myself, if I would just set aside time to actually write. Maybe find a few talented folks to critique me, help cut my teethe and ‘find my voice’. Yes, I’ll spend 10 minutes or so looking at online writing courses.
Hmmm…but I could quite possibly find all of the ingredients for making me a better writer by just finding a good online community of writers. Why limit myself to a static list of courses and instructors?
Well, maybe you get what you pay for, which is a whole lot of nothing If I were to rely on a site full of unpublished hacks to help provide constructive criticism and motivation.
Or maybe I’ll actually need the little dose of guilt (that would be provided by having paid to enroll in a class) to actually motivate me during those times when I’d rather sign up for another Mafia game or dive into the next new release on the Xbox.
So who has done both, either, or neither? Did it work for you or not?
I’ve taken several creative writing classes (enough to have a minor in CW) and two graduate level creative writing workshops (my electives in my grad program), and I can honestly say they were pretty much a waste of time.
I found the Absolute Write Message Board pretty helpful. Several published authors (fiction, non-fiction, free lance, screenwriters, etc) post there and offer advice. There’s a forum dedicated to critique/criticism. It’s a good community. All in all, I’d say I got more out of it than I did the writing courses. There are several other message boards and blogs for support/critique/etc, but of course, there’s the risk that you’ll get sucked in to those discussions and never actually write anything.
I think the first thing you need to do is get rid of the image of the “self-employed writer holed up in a mountain cabin ignoring calls from the editor.” Cuz, that ain’t how it works.
Yes, yes. A fantasy at every level, and frankly one I can’t seem to entertain without some sort of frightening flash to Misery anyway.
Thanks for the link. I will check it out.
On the drive home, Mrs. WeHaveCookies and I had one of those lively and heated conversations that we tend to have whenever whichever one of us is waxing pessimistic about chasing our more creative dreams, and the other attempts to be passionately supportive and optimistic, yet is ignored as being biased and blinded by love. We have one at least once a week.
To get the ball rolling, I’m just going to try and write like a maniac for a bit. Poems, essays, short stories, whatever. I’m likely to avoid either classes or communities for a while, at least until I’ve gotten at least a little bit past my self-censorship hangups.
If you’re the type who is easily distracted (like me), you might want to start with writing for one hour every day. Just set aside a block of time and resolve that no matter what you’re going to write then, ignoring the internal editor, or fears about not being “good enough.”
Start planning for this year’s NaNoWriMo. The site has some good prep activities. It helped me kickstart my first novel. I’m 18 months of editing, rewrites and rejection slips, closer to getting published.
Another great place for exercising your writerly skills and getting good ideas for plot and character development is Holly Lisle’s site. The workshops are great and short enough to work through during (ahem) breaks at work.
There’ll also be another SoCNoC (Southern Cross Novel Challenge) through this site. It’s similar to Nano and we had a great bunch of people from the States join in last year.
You’ll get some great suggestions from better (and actual published) writers here. Check them all out. Something will definitely work best for you.
I’ve tried online writing courses without much success, mainly because I didn’t get to meet the others in the flesh. It was difficult to give and recieve critique through text only - no matter how skilled you are at expressing yourself, many valuable nuances get lost, for example because you can’t immediately have people clarify what they say. And sitting, as I do, on my butt all day, I need to get out and talk to other likeminded people in order to not start procrastinating and grow intellectually stale. The procrastinating bit is especially important here. With an online course, it was much easier to fall for that.
I’m currently enrolled in a two-year program at a college, and it works much better because of the real-life meetings. The first year there were classes every day, now we just meet up and talk about text and writing a few times a month.
If you don’t have the opportunity for an in-the-flesh writing course, I would at least suggest something that involves meetings now and then. It helps immensely with incentive, inspiration and a sense that you’re going somewhere. Can’t recommend anything though since we’re not in the same country.
I spend as much or more time hanging out on AW as I do here. (But I still manage to get plenty of writing done.) Like pepper said, there are writers of every stage and skill level, including a few who are currently on the NYT Bestseller Lists.
If your serious, join Critters. It focuses of science fiction/fantasy/horror, but is an excellent place to get critiques on your work.
I’ve taking formal writing classes, and they were all pretty much the same as Critters: you put up a work for critiquing and the group would make comments. The main advantage to doing it live is to check audience reaction: if you’re writing a humorous story and no one is smiling, you know there’s a problem. Online, you don’t get that. But other than that, you’ll get good advice online and in person (and bad advice – you need to be able to weigh what people are saying).
Critiquing also sharpens your own writing. If you can see what’s good and bad in someone else’s work, you can try to use that knowledge in your own.
In addition, you must write. You’ve got to sit down and write something and not spend all your time planning to do it. Put the words down. The more you write, the better you’ll get. The idea of putting out a bunch of writing is a very good one. Write a story, send it off, and then start writing another.
Send me a private message if you want more details.
I’m not ruling out taking in-person classes at some point. I think that will be valuable for me. Between sharing one car and our combined work schedules and responsibilities, my first phase is going to have to be limited to online only.
And in case it came off as snarky (instead of paranoid, as it was intended) I do not actually think that the average participants of online writing communities are talentless hacks…