I’m not going to give away my instructors lessons, but I will tell you that his name is Dan Blank, I am taking the course through Writer’s Digest and after one week–yes, I said ONE week–it has been well worth the time and tuition.  Why you ask?  Surely at 53 and with a Master’s Degree in English from a prestigious Southern university there is not so much for me to learn.  Wrong.  I know how to write.  I had one friend tell me that I am obviously technically well-trained.  Commas, periods, quotation marks, even spelling–no problem. “Technically well-trained,” however, is like a date telling you you’re a nice person.  It won’t make my stories wonderful, and it won’t get me published.

Channeling an active imagination into good fiction is another story for another time.  This course is about Blogging.  What I had to do to even accomplish his first assignment was sit down and take a long, hard look at myself as a writer.  That was more than useful; it was absolutely essential to moving on in my professional life.  I realized that I can’t be all things to all people, creatively speaking, and I had to consider carefully and realistically what I can do and what I can’t.  I also discovered that, at least for me, I had envisioned the scope of this blog as too big and disjointed.  If I truly want to use it as a stepping stone to publication (which is, after all, how a writer measures success), I have to be more focused.

I know this is kind of vague, but as I said, I want to be respectful of the instructor and the work he has put into developing the course.    When I am done, however, I expect to do some significant revision of the masterwork that is my blog.