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“I have done a lot of writing online and for retail mags so was able to get straight into the applied writing course at level 7, but then I realized that fiction writing is a whole different world, and that was what I was there for.” “I had started an historical fiction manuscript and was wanting some professional and peer input, so doing the course was hugely valuable for me as well as being confronting and exposing. Fiction writing includes weaving together the expression of emotions, good story telling, and choosing a point of view for the storyteller voice, and these were things I hadn’t had to think about before.” “I loved that the course was all online and a big part of it was sharing content and getting feedback. We were critiquing and being critiqued by a team of fellow students, mentors and professionals in the business at the same level which was hard at first but then I started to look forward to it and I learned a lot. The tutors were great at suggesting rather than telling us what to try, and I changed my whole book from third person to first person as a result of this collective input.” “We were each working on a manuscript so we spent a lot of the time writing and re-working our content, then there was a final assessment from a professional writer who knows the business. Since finishing the course, I’ve spent a couple of months re-editing on the basis of the assessment suggestions and have now submitted the manuscript to a New Zealand literary agent. It’s a financial commitment but they know the publishing world and are good at what they do.” “While the manuscript is with the agent, I’m writing and editing the next book in the fictional series, plus starting some other non-fiction work. People fascinate me and I’m curious about how we live through challenging events. I have lived in Africa, the UK, and now 12 years in New Zealand so these life experiences give me both content and a context to draw on.”
“When I was young I wanted to be a writer but then life happened and it becomes hard to make it a priority, so I...
In my last year of the course I was offered a place in Level 7 which requires students to complete a major project...
“Professional writing was the easy part for me when I enrolled in this course. My big challenge was attempting to break into fiction in my late sixties. Papers like Myths, Legends and Folk Tales, Short Story, and Novel opened up a whole range of possibilities for me and I revelled in the chance to write creatively.”
“The fact that the course was online was ideal for me because I’m a retiree, and there was the added bonus of several local tutors who I could meet with personally. They kept me motivated.”
“However, I wasn’t an easy student. Because my background is in education, and in curriculum and professional development writing in particular, I was critical of some of the content and structure of the course. The great thing was that the tutors embraced my input, so it was a real win-win situation.”
“In my last year of the course I was offered a place in Level 7 which requires students to complete a major project. It was a perfect opportunity for me to write my 82,000 word novel. It is the story of a young woman being sent to a remote community to teach, who finds that she herself gets an education. We had expert online tutor input plus we were matched with professional mentors and assessors relevant to our genre. I was delighted with the assessment and feel I’ve gone from being a professional writer to a writer of fiction.”
“I’m a lot more secure in my understanding of how to write fiction now, and my confidence in my own creativity has grown enormously as a result of this learning journey. I’m keen to carry on writing creatively, and my dream is to see my novel published.”