14th January, 2016

Another week and another few thousand words, in the midst of other things life throws at you.

In my usual lead up to a good writing session I tend to do some online browsing, some may call it avoidance, but I find if I allow myself a short time to do this it’s out of my system. I decided to catch up on some of the blogs I follow and whilst reading the Curtis Brown blog, momentarily considered signing up for their 6-month children’s book writing course at GBP1600.

It was momentarily but I still had some avoidance time left and began looking at post grad courses in Australia for Creative Writing, of course there are hundreds and also pricey.

I then wondered how many successful authors actually had a BA or post grad qualification in writing. I was pleased to see that quite a number don’t, for example J K Rowling.

I thought about my touchstone authors, Bryce Courtenay and Colleen McCullough and after some ‘Googling’ discovered that neither had degrees in writing, Colleen was very well educated, first qualifying as a teacher and then going onto medical school and Bryce studied in journalism and worked in advertising – a career he excelled in with successful campaigns such as Louie the Fly and the Milky Bar Kid.

So I think I’ll give the Curtis Brown writing course a miss and just concentrate on getting words down.

As for reading this week, it has been fairly successful as well. I have begun reading a Jodi Piccoult book, Keeping Faith – how does she write so effortlessly in first person? But as it’s not compatible with my iPhone I’m reading a second book when I’m out and about – it is dreadful. During the Year of The Novel course our tutor, Emily Maguire, warned us about preaching in our writing, well I have now experienced it. I would prefer not to finish reading the book but will persevere in order to make a mental list of all the things NOT to do in my writing – probably saving GBP1600 – despite the agony.

There are always lessons to be learnt, you just need to look for them and learn.