Write a book or work on yourself - it’s all the same to us

“My project is me!”

This was the response of one of our writing circle participants when asked what she was working on. She said she had spent her life running a family. Recently divorced, she wanted to rediscover her creativity. She wanted to find the person she once was and celebrate her.

Good on her.

It started me thinking about why people do writing courses. There are those who want to write a book of some kind. We have many of them, and a few that we think will end up with publishable manuscripts.

But we’re not as strict as academic writing programmes have to be. First of all, we don’t care what anyone wants to write. They can write genre or literary, scripts, fiction or non-fiction.  And we understand that not everyone who has the desire will end up producing something of a publishable standard. 

But who cares? It’s an effort that’s never wasted. And if the first draft isn’t publishable, perhaps the second will be. And if the first manuscript will never make it, perhaps the next one will.

Richard and I will never market our courses on the basis of how many published manuscripts our participants produce.  That’s because we’re never going to have the entry criteria that universities do. We don’t see that as our role.

We think we can provide the skills that take some manuscripts from untouchable to publishable.  This isn’t because we’re “cleverer” or better than anyone else. But we made the decision that, in order to be of help, we’d have to be prepared to share our own vulnerabilities - our own successes, when they’re applicable, but more commonly, our own failures.

Because we’ve been through it, we are patient. We encourage and offer practical advice when writers get stuck. We can even give deadlines, if that helps.  We’re immensely proud when our participants produce fabulous work. But if they merely want to grow as creative individuals, if the most they’ll ever write is a life-journal, that’s also fine by us.

In our recent Character development course, two people said they hoped to gain the skills to develop a range of interesting characters, with a full inner life. One hoped to gain the depth to aid her in an on-going novel, while another wanted to kickstart a novel.
A couple of them wanted to crystalise ideas and get things flowing. One was working on a film script, one hoped to develop ideas for a children’s book, while another two were doing it for “fun” and for “time for me”. 

Writing isn’t easy.  It requires enormous commitment. Some people long to write, but will face a long struggle to develop the ability. Others have the ability, but may never manage the loneliness and devotion required.

Their writing may end up illuminating the lives of others. Or it may be an aid to living as powerful a life as they are able. We believe a good writing course should serve all these needs.
For help and support with your writing join our Writers’ Circle Course, either online or face-to-face in Johannesburg.

The next few dates for the Character Course are Saturday 5 June and Saturday 25 October in Johannesburg and Friday August 27 in Cape Town.

To read about the pros and cons of online versus face-to-face courses click here.