I've been promising myself for years to do more writing, but I was letting everything get in the way until I took a Gotham Writers' Workshop online class recently. I decided to try the Fiction I class. The class was 10 weeks long--just perfect for firing up and exercising my writing muscles.

To give you a peek inside this format, here's an outline of how the class worked. Each week we worked on a different topic related to fiction, such as character, setting, dialogue, point of view, etc. The lecture was posted online, and the class teacher posted a discussion question for students to respond to. We also received an assignment designed to give us practice on that week's particular lesson. The writing assignments in my class were usually about 500 words--long enough to explore the lesson, but not so long that they were too lengthy to complete each week. The teacher privately commented on each assignment. Once a week, we had one-hour real-time online discussion open to any student who wanted to join in to discuss the lessons or anything else about writing. That was a great chance to get to know other students, too.

In addition to the assignments, we each had two chances to post stories up to 5,000 words for our classmates and the teacher to critique publicly. In turn, we critiqued the stories that our classmates posted. I think that's where I learned the most. I'd never posted work online before, and I wasn't sure how critical my fellow students would be. They were very supportive, but they didn't hold back, and that was the most valuable feedback of all. I wouldn't have learned much if my only feedback was compliments on those things I was doing well!

The online class format is easy to use, with multiple opportunities to connect with the writing teacher and classmates. I found the format to be very flexible, too: I could work on the homework or comment on classmates' work any time I wanted during that week. Our teacher was very accessible and very good at nurturing our writing.

Take a look at the Web site and you'll see that Gotham offers a class for everyone. Topics include fiction, nonfiction, article writing, playwriting, humor, genre classes, plus more than I could reasonably list here. Some classes offer different levels for beginners and more advanced students. Online classes run throughout the year, usually in six- and 10-week segments.

The class was just the motivation I needed to sit down and do more writing. In fact, I found the guidance and the feedback so helpful that I'm planning to take another class!

--Martha Lundin, editorial associate

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