I don't need any more courses

I subscribe to Writing Magazine, and I usually  buy Writers' Forum too each month.  And every time I read these magazines my eyes stray to glossy adverts for writing courses.

Over the thirty plus years I've been writing I must have attended hundreds of them.  Go back fifteen years and you would have found me, and most of my local writing friends, eagerly preparing for the annual Writers' Conference at the University of Winchester.  Some years I even booked for the Friday all-day workshop as well as the weekend.  My Friday would start at ten in the morning, and not finish until ten-thirty that night.

When I knew nothing about the publishing industry, or the business of writing for publication, I learned a great deal from course tutors and fellow writers. I did courses on creating powerful characters, pitching to agents, the state of the publishing industry, and self-publishing.  And I've lost count of the times I've walked out of a one-to-one session with an agent feeling dispirited.

On one occasion I cut short my fifteen-minute interview with an agent after she suggested that there should be a romance in the book between the male and female leads.  Considering that the female is a cat-shaped half-human and the male is full human, I thought it was the stupidest and weirdest comment I'd ever heard from an agent.  I think that has to count as one of the lowest points in my search for publication.

I've sought regular feedback on my manuscripts, read them to countless critiquing groups, and had my self-published books rigorously copy and line edited.  I've learned to think in terms of a commercial product.  Then in 2008 I had a book taken off the slushpile by a major publisher.  They read the whole thing, and liked it, but didn't offer me a contract.  But to have got that far from an unsolicited approach was a real boost, and they gave me lots of positive feedback on the novel .  More recently, an agent kindly critiqued my  cover letter for the novel I'm currently submitting, telling me she couldn't improve on it.

So I've decided I don't need any more courses.  I've learned my craft.  Now my quest to get published has shifted to finding the people who believe in my vision of the future, and don't try to turn my female characters into sexy airheads.  Courses can't help with that search.  It's down to numbers, self-belief, and perseverance - and a whole lot of luck.