Courses & Free Stories

Hi, I hope you like the photo above of a small place called Bellanoch, that is beautifully situated on the Crinan Canal in Argyll. It's a shame that it is over 300 miles from my home in Staffordshire, because I'd love to be walking the towpath this morning.

Writing
I was looking through my copy of "Writing Magazine," last night and noticed some big averts regarding writing courses. My first thoughts were that it must be worth their while to place these adverts, so the the number of people taking up the writing challenge must be pretty healthy.

I then started to think about whether they were helpful or not. I had taken one of the well known ones when I was starting out as a freelance writer and I don't think it did me any harm. To be honest I think they are very good, because they give you lots of confidence.

I know there are many writers out there who are scribbling away and keeping their tallents hidden from the rest of the world. They are reading their own work and perhaps only letting a loved one have a peek at it. They have no intention of sending it out into the world because they have a fear that submitting work to editors could invite laughter and crtiscism. They need a confidence boost to make them take the plunge and this exactly what a good writing course can do.

I know some of you think that you can get all of the information required to become a freelance writer from free articles on the internet or from books. Well you are partly right, there is information on the internet and one or two books. I'm even writing one myself which will support and give more details on the wrting topics that I've mentioned in these posts. I will give more details about it on this blog and on my website, at the moment the writing is going well and I'm expecting to publish it in April.Cick here to go to my website for book details and freedownloads.

I am a great believer in getting as much help and information from as many sources as possible. So use the internet and buys some books, but there is no reason why you shouldn't do a course at the same time.

Doing a course not only teaches you the basics on how to present your work but you also get friendly feedback from your tutor. You will be given various assignments to complete and these will motivate you to write and make real submissions. It won't take long and you will find yourself full of enthusiasm and confidence.

Free Downloads
Please take a look at the free downloads on my website. I've just posted a new story on there, "Gone Fishing," beware anglers this could happen to you. Please read it and send me you comments. I wrote it a long while agao and it failed to get published perhaps you can tell me why. All I ask is that you keep you comments polite and clean.click here to read or download free stories.

Sorry there wasn't much space for stuff about Scotland in this post. I'll leave you with a nice picture of some boats in Kircudbright.
There will be more in my next post for anglers and more photos of paradise.