Fantasy writing workshops/courses in the UK

[drewmullet]

Hi guys,

This is my first post to this forum, so I hope I'm posting it in the right place! I thought someone might have asked this before, but I couldn't find a thread on it, so apologies if I'm going over old territory.

I've been planning to start writing fantasy stories for years. (I use the word 'planning' loosely.) I never saw how I could use writing to financially support myself while just starting out though, so I went for a more mainstream job and told myself I would write on the side until I could gradually shift my focus back towards writing. Predictably though, my mainstream job has taken all my attention for the past few years, so I've let my desire to write fall by the wayside a little bit, although I've kept adding ideas to my little notebook.

Anyway, the point is that I've rekindled that desire, and I'm looking for a good fantasy writing course or workshop that I could attend in order to give me a bit of a kick-start. Something suitable for someone who is just starting out, and needs an idea of how to go about tackling such a big undertaking! I'm living in the UK at the moment, London specifically, so I'm looking for something in that area, although if there's a particularly good one elsewhere in the UK or Europe, I would consider flying the coop for a little while.

Does anyone know of anything that would suit my situation? I appreciate the help, so thanks in advance.

[chopper]

'lo chap -
your best bet may be trying to find a writer's group first. try looking via yr local library, or see if bookshops have noticeboards to that kind of thing

s

[drewmullet]

Hi again,

I just thought I'd follow this up by saying that my girlfriend recently (after a lot of searching!) found a creative writing course offered by the London School of Journalism (you'll have to do a Google search because apparently I don't have enough posts to post links...but if you want a hint, the url starts with an lsj and ends in a .org).

Even though they're mainly focused on journalism, they offer an evening course and a short course on creative writing. It looks to be more of a beginners' course, which is just what I was looking for. Currently it's taken by an author named Nick Barlay, who I don't know too much about.

Hopefully that helps anyone in the same situation as me!