Email College

[CJL_Forever (aka Sini)]

Ok, so I think this is where I should post this.
I bought this magazine today called "Writers' Forum" and there is this advert in there about a website called www.emailcollege.co.uk
It offers free courses in all kinds of things, but there are a lot of story writing, poetry and songwriting ones. Basically, you get sent an email everyday and it is no more than about 3 A4 pages long, and is a lecture on how to write, and hints and tips etc. There are no exams or anything, and you don't sent any work to them. It is literally a personal thing to help you in your writing. It seems like a really good idea. I have signed up to four. One in Short Story Basic, one in Creative Writing, one in Story Telling and one is Developing Characters. I only signed up today, so I'll recieve Lesson 1 from all of them tomorrow. Most of the courses are a week long, but some are a longer. The Creative Writing one for example has 20 lessons, one each day. If anyone wants a review once I start them, I will add to this thread with info and my thoughts on it. I just thought it would be a good thing to share with you lot.
xxxx

[sapphiresmoke]

Thanks, Sini!
If I wasn't a writing major, I'd probably sign up. As it is, I'm practically forced to write these days, lol. I don't think I can absorb any more lessons than I'm getting.

I'd definitely like to be updated about it, though... Sounds interesting. If you like it, I'll start mentioning it to people who might be interested.

[Endovia]

Dude, that sounds awesome! I think I'll sign up.

[CJL_Forever (aka Sini)]

I'll try and put a review up sometime tomorrow. Didn't get the first email till About 1 in the morning on Friday, and was out all day Friday and have been at my boyfriend's since Friday evening, so haven't had a chance to read them yet, so will do either tonight, depending on what time I leave my boyfriend's, or tomorrow morning and then review them xx

[CJL_Forever (aka Sini)]

Ok, so rather than post one extremly long post, I will outline here the information about the courses I signed up for, and review the first lessons in another post. I will not write a full review for all the lessons, as it will take up far too much room,. For the Developing Characters and Fighting Writer's Block courses, due to one being only four lessons long and the other five, I will review the first and last lessons, but sum up the the ones between in the last review. For the Short Story Basics I will do full reviews on the first, 4th and last lessons, with short sum ups of the 2nd and 3rd in the review for the 4th lesson, and the 5th and 6th in the final review. The Creative Writing, I will review occasionally, as it is 20 lessons long. I hope that all makes sense. LOLZ!!!


Email College Course Review.

My Courses.
• Short Story Basics
• Creative Writing
• Developing Characters
• Fighting Writer’s Block



Layout of each course

Short Story Basics
1. -> Lesson 1: Right Attitude
2. -> Lesson 2: Ideas
3. -> Lesson 3: Story Building
4. -> Lesson 4: Style
5. -> Lesson 5: Templates
6. -> Lesson 6: Story Writing
7. -> Lesson 7: Presentation


Creative Writing
1. -> Lesson1: Creative Realities
2. -> Lesson 2: Feeling Creative?
3. -> Lesson 3: Why & What Writing?
4. -> Lesson 4; Writing Fiction
5. -> Lesson 5: Genres
6. -> Lesson 6: Children & Fantasy Genres
7. -> Lesson 7: Historical & Romances
8. -> Lesson 8: Plots
9. -> Lesson 9: Themes
10. -> Lesson 10: Plot Building
11. -> Lesson 11: Roadmaps & Forests
12. -> Lesson 12: Silver Shoes and Graphs
13. -> Lesson 13: Creating Characters
14. -> Lesson 14: Heroes and Villains
15. -> Lesson 15: Genre Characters
16. -> Lesson 16: Dialogue
17. -> Lesson 17: Dialogue Techniques
18. -> Lesson 18: Writing Styles
19. -> Lesson 19: Style & Viewpoint
20. -> Lesson 20: Naming & the End


Developing Characters
1. -> Lesson 1: Point of View
2. -> Lesson 2: Character Profiling
3. -> Lesson 3: What's in a Name
4. -> Lesson 4: Character Description


Fighting Writer’s Block
1. -> Lesson 1: All in Your Head?
2. -> Lesson 2: What is the Real Cause?
3. -> Lesson 3: Blockbusters
4. -> Lesson 4: Get it Done Plan
5. -> Lesson 5: Speed Writing

[sapphiresmoke]

Sounds good. Looking forward to hearing about it.

[CJL_Forever (aka Sini)]

Lesson 1

Short Story Basics -> Lesson 1: Right Attitude

The lecture is just under two A4 pages long. This is more or less the introduction to the course.

This course is for people who are already writing, or have tried to write, short stories. It is simply to help your work get published by giving you a basic writing plan and informing you of the things a publisher will be looking for in your work and how to make it stand out to them. As the author of the lecture describes it “Our aim is to give you much more specific advice, based on the experience of others of getting stories into print.”
The lecture then goes on to explain what a publisher is looking for in short stories.

“* Excellent presentation.
* An interesting mind at work
* A thorough grasp of the rules of writing”

The lecture explains how to mentally prepare yourself for writing a short story, and the best ways to write to help your words flow. It also cites that it is more prudent to write just a few hundred words a day rather than thousands on one day out of a week.
“In order to write well and effectively, you will need to set aside adequate writing time. ……. an hour a day. Or half an hour if that’s all you can manage. Rhythm is the important thing. Writing thrives on routine. Writing 200 words a day is much better than writing 1400 words once a week. Set up a time every day, ideally the same time that you know you must do some writing ….. your subconscious will begin to look forward to those times and perform accordingly.”

The lecture also describes the importance of belief in yourself and your writing. By repeating a mantra to yourself, you will convince your subconscious that you are a good writer and will help to stop negative thoughts of how there is no point to writing if you come up against difficulties.
The examples the course gives of the kind of things to repeat to yourself are the following:
“* I write well and easily. My work is infinitely publishable.
* I am a great writer, deserving of praise.
* I always complete the stories I start.”

This includes understanding your purpose in writing. I.e. to inform, to entertain or simply because it is something you enjoy doing. “Meditate on these issues for a few moments every day ……. Plant some seeds of purpose in your subconscious mind and let the motivation to follow through, stew and bubble up into your conscious mind.”

The lecture then stresses the importance of goal setting. For example, deciding that you will write no less than 500 words everyday for a week. This also helps with maintaining a routine.

The whole of the lecture is easy to understand and informative. It doesn’t use big words for the sake of big words, as some self help books do, but rather simplifies the information into something that doesn’t take a great deal of effort to read or focus on. Each section of the text is presented cleanly and there is no information overload, as each section is only a couple of paragraphs long. I am hoping that the rest of the lectures will be like this one in that way.






Developing Characters -> Point of View

As with ‘Short Story Basics’ this is pretty much an introduction to the course.

As the title shows, the lecture centres on the varying points of view in which you can write.
It explains how different points of view can work, and which are most popular.
It also gives two exercises to help your writing. The first exercise is three passages, each written in a different view point for you to identify. The second exercise requires you to write use the three scenarios and write three short paragraphs for each one in different points of view.

(I won’t take up loads of room in this thread, but I’ll post my attempts in the short stories section if anyone wants to see them?)

There’s really not much more I can review about this one, as it literally just explains the points of view, which we all fully understand (I should hope! LOLZ!)

[CJL_Forever (aka Sini)]

Sorry that I have only reviewed two lectures. Haven't had time to write another one yet. Will get to it as soon as possible. xx

[sapphiresmoke]

No worries... I haven't had a chance to read those two yet. Midterms.
I've just been assigned four essays (fully developed arguments, cited sources, all that) that are due next week... And that's just for one class. So.

[CJL_Forever (aka Sini)]

Ouch. That's a lot.

[sapphiresmoke]

Yeah. If she'd just given them to us over spring break, it would be about half the stress. But no, that would be too logical. Lol.