A Learning Process.

I had my first session with Tracy Hickman last week. I signed up for his Scribe's Forge course, as I'd previously threatened to do, and thoroughly enjoyed it. We had a 90 minute webinar, where he taught us via webcam, and we responded and asked questions by typing as we looked up pages in a workbook.

Obviously a face-to-face workshop would be better - it would certainly suit my learning style, but I'm limited here in Australia.

I've written on the dearth of Spec-Fic workshops in the local scence before. Writers Victoria runs them from time to time, and I've recently completed a good Jack Dann course there. I also did a two day workshop with Sean Williams a few years ago, and I spent three months being mentored by Paul Haines.

Most of these, however, were based on critting each others work and developing our own stories. The Tracy Hickman workshop is based around some writing theory and method, and this is something I've longed for.

Already it's given me better ideas on how to construct stories and characters, and that's only after the first session.

It's all learning, and that's something I continue to do. I look back at stories that I wrote even just a year ago, and can see how I could have improved them. I analyse elements of short stories I read, and see what works and what doesn't. But mostly I try to apply what I've learnt to my new writing.

I always learn a lot as I go. But a course or two in the basics never goes astray.