University writing courses

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I've written to the QWC this morning to ask if the eNewsletter can publish a paragraph for me soliciting views of university writing courses. I'm quite keen to get as complete a picture as I can of the variety of courses available, what they offer, what different writers think of them. At about $1500 per subject (p/g) I think it's fair to ask exactly how useful these courses are if they are not actually teaching writing skills.

Any observations can be made under the cloak of a nom de plume. I understand that an enrolled student at UQ or QUT for example, unhappy with the quality of the teaching and the courses is still going to be unlikely to want these views to be known as theirs. There's no such thing as objectivity in universities or anywhere else, and making an enemy of a powerful writer in Queensland could affect ones prospects in the limited market that Queensland offers.

So anyone who feels they might like to contribute an assessment on this topic to this blog but not an acknowledged one please feel free to email me here - queenslandwriting@gmail.com - and I will post it for you, regards Barbara

In the last few weeks we have been discussing the various writing courses out there. The Queensland Writers Centre now has online writing courses that may pique your interest and at the fraction of the cost. The ‘Year of the Novel’ has particularly caught my attention. I’ve always wanted to do this course but the idea of commuting into Brisbane every fortnight put me off, especially since I work most weekends. Here is an abstract from the QWC homepage:

Challenge yourself to complete the ultimate writing journey in Year of the Novel Online. Over 26 progressive fortnights you will be inspired and challenged to overcome road blocks and, most importantly, to keep writing. You will receive individual feedback from our expert tutor as your manuscript develops, focusing on the writer's guide to narrative structure, characterisation, developing voice and self-editing. You will participate in a number of group and individual activities and share your developing understanding of writing as you work toward completeing a manuscript draft.

Tutor: Kim Wilkins

When: The course begins on 1 August 2009 and runs through to the end of July 2010. New work is released each fortnight and then participants have that fortnight to complete the activities and submit them to be shared with the tutor and/or the group.

Why? Queensland Writers Centre realises the importance of enabling writers and would be writers to develop their skills and progress their work. So we have created a number of online writing courses which we will be releasing throughout 2009. This is a new endeavour for us and we are in beta-testing mode, which means we are releasing the courses at special prices this year. So get in quick!

Please note: This course involves downloading audio files, so please ensure you have access to fast dial-up internet access as a minimum.What happens after purchase? Once you have purchased this product you will be sent an email with a link to the online learning site and your logon details. Simply logon onto the site and from 1 August 2009 your course materials for the first fortnight's work will be available.

And the cost? Only $400.

Post Note: Cengage Education contacted me after reading my assessment of the 'Fantasy and Science Fiction' Course and have offered me a free three month extension. I have accepted their offer and plan to tackle the remaining module with gusto. I thank them for their generosity.

A few weeks ago I promised to write about the writing courses I’ve completed over the years and a little about the Masters writing program at the University of New England. A few years after completing a Masters of Justice at the Queensland University of Technology I got the study bug again and thought one of those distance education Tafe courses offered by Thomson Education (now Cengage) would suit my busy schedule. As Barbara mentioned in the post below, these courses are quite amateurish. But I must admit I quite enjoyed it and churned out a few short stories, though it certainly was not taxing. And of course, the marks were rather generous. However, I probably could have learned just as much by picking up a book about creative writing at the local library and saved myself $1200.

Despite this, I went back again two years later and studied Fantasy and Science Fiction Writing. I knew as soon as I received the materials that this was a bad choice. The package came with two thin workbooks and nothing else. I returned the books with a formal letter cancelling the course, well within the prescribed time, or so I thought. Two weeks later I rang up to make sure everything was squared away to find out that they had received the books but not the letter and it was now too late to cancel the course without massive penalties. Trying to make the best of the situation I tackled the course with gusto, which quickly waned after three assignments. A Fantasy writer I found a lot the material bent towards Science Fiction, which, save for a few favourite authors, I have absolutely no interest it. I also found the assignments to be very rigid unlike the previous Creative Writing course where you had much more leeway in what you could write. In the end I gave up on the course, not willing to waste anymore of my precious spare time.

At the beginning of this year I started a Master of Arts, majoring in Writing at UNE. UNE has established itself as an excellent Distance Education University and offers great support to all its Distance Ed. students. And unlike a recent story in the Sunday Mail by a disgruntled Lecturer, this university certainly has not dumb downed its content. It is also not expensive, roughly half, if not less, the cost of the Open Universities (about $650 per unit). I have not decided whether I’m going to complete the whole Masters program or just settle on a Graduate Certificate of Writing (with my daughters’ disability, any number of surprises could be hiding around the corner). You have a large choice of core units to choose from and so can tailor the program around your own particular interests. The core units for the GCW are:

- Critical and Creative Writing Through Literature
- Writing for Work
- Publishing and Editing, and
- Research in Writing

I’ve also elected to do 'Children’s Literature and Fantasy' which I’m really looking forward to. I’ve already read all the prescribed books ($200 worth, but hey my daughter can read them as she grows up), which included 'The Tombs of Atuan' by Ursula K. Le Guin, 'The Change Over' by Margaret Mahy, and several others including a few children’s books such as 'Where the Wild Things Are'. I will also be studying 'Critical and Creative Writing' next semester, which included 'The Princess Bride' in its prescribed text list (a nostalgic favourite of mine).

I hope this quick summary is helpful for those contemplating further study. If you are a beginner writer, the Creative Writing courses offered by Cengage or Lifestyle Direct could be for you. But if you are looking for something more challenging, stick to a reputable University such as UNE, UQ or QUT.

Submitter's Block

I've discovered I have something wrong with me. Actually I have lots of things wrong with me, but this particular thing is a disorder I didn't know existed until I read these words:

You want to write, but you don't. Or perhaps you start, but can't bring yourself to finish, leaving a dozen promising articles or stories in various stages of incompletion. Or perhaps you finish, but can't quite bring yourself to stuff those pages into an envelope and pop them in the mail. Your family, friends, or critique group say your work is wonderful. So what is holding you back?

This scenario is far from rare. It isn't the same as the dreaded malady we call "writer's block." It's more like "submitter's block," and I've known many excellent writers who suffer from it. They produce quality work -- stories, novels, articles -- and earn well-deserved praise from peers in critique groups, yet balk at the thought of actually sending that work to market.

http://www.writing-world.com/basics/writer.shtml

Now that I know I have submitter's block maybe I'll make an effort to overcome it. Moira Allen in her article flagged above outlines some strategies. I might even take the plunge. But maybe it doesn't matter that much because I actually write a lot and love writing and am constantly making efforts to improve my writing so presumably this fulfills the desire to do it as well as I can. At the moment I don't really care much about going further with it than I have now. I'm interested in what others think - so does publication matter?

Please discuss.

Barbara

Swinburne Report Card - Semester 1 MA (Writing)

After 12 very intense weeks at Swinburne we had a couple of final tutoral assignments to complete. These were designed by the course convenors to get our student perspective on each of our subjects.

I did all of the first four core subjects, a very big workload: -

Critical Friends
Real life Writing
Journalism
Research to Publication

Completing this gives one a Graduate Certificate in Writing. If I continue through next semester I will earn a Graduate Diploma. And if I follow this up with another semester I'll have an MA.
I'm posting my response to Critical Friends below, but want to add a couple of other things beforehand. The Swinburne MA in Writing is not aimed particularly at creative writing. It also takes in all comers so there is no requirement to have a writing background. Some of my class-mates struggled with the basics of writing English well, a surprise when considering the work required of a postgraduate degree in Writing. I understand that these days even undergraduate courses now have problems with students who are unable to write English clearly.

Of course postgraduate doesn't really mean a higher level tertiary degree any more, it just means that the universities can charge $1500 per subject and make a lot more money out of each student. Sorry to sound so cynical but I've sat in postgraduate law classrooms which were in fact just undergraduate subjects with the normal cohort of undergraduate students. The only difference was the cost of the subject if you were enrolled in a postgraduate qualification. Some postgraduate qualifications don't even require an undergraduate degree.

Although the Swinburne course is not really focused where I want to go with my writing I did find it in some ways interesting and a challenge. Here is my tutorial response to the Critical Friends week 12 question. This subject is really about learning how to read with an editorial eye, reading both your own work and that of others. Having said that I don't think I'll ever master reading my own work with a critical eye. Not do I think even well-established writers can successfully do so.

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Write a brief account of what resources you found most useful in this subject.
Write 400/500 words and post them to the discussion area for this module.

I decided I would address this question by considering its component parts. What are resources? They can and do include the input of our tutor, the input of our colleagues, the work of our colleagues, the readings (both lecture notes and web articles), and the sheer discipline of thinking, reading and writing on a given topic week by week.

The person to person input of both tutor and colleagues has been highly valuable. There's an element of writing which subliminally seeks the approving 'other' whoever that 'other' might be and Catherine you've been an insightful and intelligent receiver of our work (and I'm not trying to curry favour).

I also found the wide range of responses from our group really fascinating. Even when I completely disagreed I would find myself considering what it was I disagreed about. It's my habit to walk every morning and I like having a 'thought' to take with me when trudging through the cold (we can't compete with Melbourne, but minus temperatures are the norm in an Ipswich winter, so yes, it gets cold here in SEQ). Taking a thought for a walk can trigger a whole army of ideas, as well as barking dogs.

The lectures notes and articles we've been guided through have served a similar purpose. Sometimes I agreed, sometimes I found the lecture notes simplistic or repetitive. But I was forced to articulate and write these things, although diplomacy did disguise some of my less than enthusiastic views. I can't point to particular individual writings from this module, but our first week's readings for Real life writing which included the fabulous duologue between Zadie Smith and James Woods were an electrifying kick-start for the whole course.

We've also been led to some really useful web portals on writing and the sites below are ones which will have a long-term usefulness for me (I think like a librarian – a good portal can be hard to find, so I've made a list):

http://www.poewar.com/articles/ [The Writer's Resource Center]
http://www.lit.org/ [Lit.Org]
http://www.writewords.org.uk/ [Write Words]
http://www.theory.org.uk/ [the Theory.org.uk]
http://www.nla.gov.au/events/doclife/ [Documenting a life]http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/biograph/index.htm [Biography writing workshop]http://www.abc.net.au/wordmap/ [Australian Word Map]http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/instruct/guides/PrimarySources.html [Using primary sources]

Binding all of these individual processes together was the relentless discipline of producing the right words week by week. Dr Arnold nicely brings the practical business of writing into our last lecture for the subject : How do writers work? I liked her polite phrase "correction of avoidance procedures" which in my case can encompass cleaning the bath-tub, playing Scrabble on Facebook, watching 30 Rock or deciding to buy a new car (hours of rumination on http://carsales.com.au/ or http://redbook.com.au/).
In the end we should just get started, stay seated and write, managing our work processes as tidily as we would any other form of employment.
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Of course when I wrote the words above I was writing from within the subject. From outside it I would probably add that much of the lecture material seemed out of date and highly self-referential by (and to) the lecturer who wrote them, not a practice I respond to terribly well. It seemed to me she hadn't quite mastered the business of editing her own work. I hope this summary is a helpful to anyone contemplating the Swinburne MA (Writing). Now that I've started I'll probably keep going with it, but knowing beforehand just how much of it involved reading and thinking about cultural theories, and to the writings of one lecturer, I'd have opted for a course which was far more practical and hands-on. Writing is a technical, craft-oriented process as much as it is anything else. Earlier in this blog I've summarised a couple of other online writing courses I've undertaken - one in New York and one in Sydney. Each of these was too amateurish for my purposes and suffered also because of the contrasting writing experience of the different students. I would consider myself to be a middle to advanced writer, not a beginner.
I'd be very glad to learn of other online courses which are more useful to fiction writers in a nuts and bolts way.