Learn me how to write proper!

I did a creative writing MA at UEA, and it was brilliant in many ways... they didn't actually 'teach' me anything, and in fact they make a point of saying they won't. They just give you the space and time to write full time and also to have a readership of other writers who can talk about your stuff. I found having deadlines made me write much more than usual, and also having readers was interesting and useful. If I'd done a course where they'd try to teach me how to write I would have had to have left. The best way to learn to write is to just write, and to read loads, and to write. Someone once said to me 'plot your entire book before you start'. I tried this - plotted 32 chapters of a novel, and then tried to write it. It was bollocks. I got bored by chapter 3 because I knew exactly what was happening. One problem though: since doing it I am unemployable. Good jobs are like, 'she's a silly dreamer' and rubbish jobs are like, 'ooh, look at her silly madam up herself,' I am officially unemployable. So be warned.

I plotted a novel as well and I couldn't be bothered to write it. I start off and see where i go - lots more fun to discover everything as you go along.

I agree. Don't you find it rather fun when a character suddenly appears half way through the book and you're like 'Oh, he's important' or one of your main characters suddenly seem rather unimportant and you just pencil him out?

I admire anyone who can GET to chapter 3. I've had great story ideas, but somewhere between the first and second chapter I decide, nah, that's way too long, too much work! and the story shudders to a stop... *tsk. No discipline, me.*

I know an accountant who's been very creative in his time.

I went on a creative writer's course as part of my English/Film degree. I have to say that all the ways they used to get people to find inspiration were very inventive, but for me it was just a total turn off. I never managed to write anything in the class - it felt very artificial - I just wanted out of there. I actually didn't write anything for it. Luckily I didn't have to pass it for my degree, heh Everybody else on the course loved it. I realised that the process of writing for me was something entirely independent. The course was like I was at school again and I was being told to wear a uniform (I don't know why, they were not dictatorial in any way - quite the opposite). I reacted in a very negative, vehement, defensive way to the whole thing. I was very shocked at my childish response but in a strange way, it crystallized my thinking and made me a lot more confident about what I was doing. I'd go if I were you - you might find it useful. [%sig%]

I also hated the creative writing unit on my Lit degree. I think it's that I dislike being told how to write, and what to write. Had the tutor been less up his own arse, it might've been inspiring. As it was, it was dull. Horribly, I felt that I knew a damn sight more than he did.

I find Lianas reply interesting that she was told 'what to write and how to write it'. I haven't done a creative writing course but I DID do a sociology course and had a similar experience. Having been through all the theory and the boring books we were then told we were not to think for ourselves but regurgitate what we were told for the exam. I argued with the tutor about using our own ideas and intelligence. He said, 'If you think for yourself you will fail. The examiners aren't interested in what you think, they want to know that you have learned what I have told you'. I told him to stick his exam up his arse and refused to take it. He was pissed off because he apparently was judged on his results. I hated the bloody subject anyway. As I walked out I stopped at the door and said, 'There's a new bit of sociology for you'.

I took Advanced Placement Creative Writing in high school, about 100 years ago. I had a teacher who was going through a divorce, obsessively chewed the ends off about a box's worth of pens during the year (she was also trying to quit smoking as well as the loser husband), and would occasionally burst into tears during class. She was a lovely lady, rather fragile and brittle. She liked my poetry. I learned absolutely nothing. I think I still write the same way I did when I was 17. *cough*

None of this is really persuading me to join the queue for any courses! Maybe a writing group would be better. What do people think about them and are there any anyone knows of up North London way?

Meeting people from ABC in Brighton was the closest I've come to a writing group for a long time. I found it quite exhilerating. I'm looking forward to how that works out. I'm usually a very solitary writer with no writing friends collegues whatsoever. However, my other, earlier experience was just awful. I expected (very wrongly it turned out) to meet a lot of freethinkers - that there would be a more Bohemian atmos, but no, it was middleclass city, full of cardigans and tips on 'Twist's in the Tale' - I shudder to remember it. At that time, this was the only writer's group available where I was living. We went ot the pub afterwards and but it only got worse. Beards and chince, horrible. Again - I'm the type to say give it a go and find out for yourself.

Yes Ferg, that's exactly it. That's why I always advocate to write first as it opnes up lots of new stuff. It's funny how we discover all these new things - when I started my 'Killer~Piccadilly' novel (posted on the writers thread) I just had my main character in a boring job having an argument with his boss - little did I know that the story was going to involve a secret College of Demonology, Mayan culture, a Near Earth Asteroid of fantastic importance and a rather cool and dangerous serial killer. It's almost like the thing wrote itself - I still read it and wonder 'where the fuck did all this come from?' It's almost like someone else wrote it while I was down the pub.

In support, my mum has taken a number of writing workshops with a well-known local author (this is Arizona, mind you). She has found all of them extremely helpful and keeps signing up for the next courses as they come along. I find the writers at abctales very helpful; they've offered comments on things which I've gone on to alter as per their suggestions. Most of the time there aren't any comments, though, so either my writing doesn't require many changes, or it's so hopelessly mediocre than no-one bothers to comment! :-D But by all means, take a writing course; if you don't try it, you'll never know.

i taught creative writing for donkey's years and cardigans and twists in the tail about sum it up ... (pay's good tho ...) by far the best and most productive/exciting times i've had have been when i've been part of a self assembled bunch of like minded writers filched from other courses and classes ... so you may not like the actual class or group you go to ... but chances are you will click with someone else there and sneak off together for some fruitful writery times ... get to as many as you can, is my advice ... there must be hundreds in london ...