Blogfest 2012 - Online Courses?

Today’s host for Blogfest 2102 is Toni Lynn Ferro-Cloutier at www.tonilynncloutier.com and the topic is:

Online Courses

An intriguing topic today – and one I’ve never really thought about before. I’ve never taken any online courses, in writing or anything else. I once went (in real life) to a 6 week ‘Creative writing’ course about twelve years ago, but didn’t find it very useful, unless you wanted to write pretty adjective-laden descriptions of sunsets or flash-fiction about some fairly useless topic like ‘The day I lost my shoe’.

But back to online courses, and here I'm referring to 'writing courses' rather than any other kind of course. Would I sign up for one? No, probably not. Why not? Well, one reason is that there are masses of articles online about every aspect of writing (some of which I agree with, some I don’t.) There’s plenty out there, for free, so I don’t see the point of paying for something when you don’t need to!

I consider myself a fairly proficient writer. That’s not to say I know everything about it. I don’t, and I’m always willing to listen to others’ advice and opinions, or to check things out on the internet. I find, too, that I learn something new with every book I write. 

What about new writers? Personally, I tend to think that the best ‘training’ for new writers is firstly to read, read, read, and secondly to write! Read all you can in your preferred genre (and maybe in other genres too) to see what you like and what you don’t like about the author’s style, characters and plot. And then write! Maybe find a couple of critique partners, too, who will give you honest feedback and constructive criticism. That, to me, is probably more valuable than any online course.

This post is for BlogFEST 2012 which is taking place each day in October (except Sundays). Every day a different blogger will act as the host and will post the topic for blogging that day, so you can look forward to a wide variety of topics to read and enjoy.

 

You can find the links to all the other blogs here https://www.facebook.com/pages/BlogFEST-2012/508934629122385

 

If you want to join in, post your blog on the topic of the day and leave your blogpost URL on this Facebook page, so that others can visit your blog. Don’t forget to ‘like’ the page too!