An Update on Creative Writing Resources

Hello everyone! I hope you’re doing well. It’s been a very busy time for me during the past couple of weeks, especially since I have been taking a couple of courses in my spare time (plus raking leaves and fixing garden beds on the weekends.)

I would begin this next sentence with, “If there is anything I’ve learned from taking creative writing courses over the years” except I’ve definitely learned more than one thing. I have taken several creative writing courses over the past 4-5 years, through college, for free online, and once through a local event. Without these, I wouldn’t know a lot of “industry terms,” structural elements of writing, different forms of writing (short story, poetic forms, flash fiction, etc.), what my genre is (urban fantasy), and so on. Classical Christian school provided me with what I needed to know about grammar, strong quotes, tight writing, and how to form and defend an argument, but creative writing learning taught me about forms, scenes, plot, structure, characters, etc.

I had an earlier post a couple of years ago very firmly declaring that creative writing is an art, not a craft. A craft is utilitarian and economical even; art is based on principles, but given life through creativity, perhaps. Art should also be economical. 😉 Today, I’d say that the “craft” part of this art is the learning and honing of its principles.

I only accept the craft part of creative writing now because of how helpful those courses were. The structure of my latest work-in-progress is much much better than the story I’d written before.

I’ve just finished the 14-day, simple and easy-to-read email course provided by Iola Goulton (pronounced Yola). It summarized a lot of what I’ve learned over the years into one list of key points in creative writing, which helps with self-editing. She also gives some tips on how to take action going forward with this information. I highly recommend it; if anyone is interested in taking it, I’m linking it here.

I also want to create a page on this site listing all the helpful resources I’ve benefited from, so hopefully I can get around to that within a week or two. 🙂

Happy writing and creating!