Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Improving my writing

It has been more than 3 weeks since the last entry. Initially I committed to myself that I should write an entry at a minimum frequency of one in 2 weeks.

The latest update from me is that I have joined an online non-fiction writing class at Gotham Writer’s workshop (http://www.writingclasses.com). I have many reasons for joining a writing class
1. I am bad at writing. I have lost marks in examinations because of my bad writing. My GMAT AWA score is awful 4.5
2. My friend who just finished his Executive MBA at Wharton advised me to work on my writing skills. He has graduated in Top 5% of the class. He mentioned the B+ and B he got were in the courses that required submitting a written project report. And if he had good creative writing skills, he would have got all A’s.
3. I want to improve my application essays this time. Everyone who read my last year’s essays consistently said that presentation could be improved.

Now, let me tell about my experience so far about the online class. Most of the students are from different part of the country and one from UK and taking up writing seriously as a second career or career change. I am the only novice out there. I have completed just one class in Memoir writing. It works like this. The instructor provides about 10 pages lecture notes to read on one topic each week. The instructor also provides a writing assignment and some sample writing each week. The class discusses about the writing sample till the next lecture is posted and also complete the assignment for the instructor to comment on. The benefit you get is from the class discussion and the comments about the assignment. The topics that are going to be covered are
Memoir
Personal Essay
Feature Articles
Profiles
Reviews
Travel Writing

Hope at the end of the course I am able to improve my blogs and application essays.

4 comments:

Ajay said...

Morphus r u Indian?

FirstPersonArts said...

Hi, good luck on your re-application. I think it helps, when you're just starting out, to give yourself good reasons to write. Here's a memoir-writing competition that might interest you: http://impressions.firstpersonarts.org

If you send me a note, I'd be happy to forward you a flyer. Good luck!

Andrew

Senthil Subramanian said...

Hi Stephen,
Congratulations, you have taken a proactive effort to improve your writing and interview skills. I enjoyed the articles in your blog. I am going to visit often to keep you honest about your commitment to post atleast once every two weeks.
I am sure you will join a great Bshool in 2009. Good Luck.

Cheers,
Senthil Subramanian

Sandeep said...

Hi

I'm also bad at writing and got only 4.5 in AWA.I read your blog about the writing classes.Any reason why you choose Non-fiction writing class instead of Business writing class.

Thanks.