Brilliant post by Jenn Ashworth

I read this today over at Every Day I Lie A Little. 

MA in 'Creative' Writing.

I am starting a MA in creative writing. You can apply for it by emailing me and if I accept you, you will be allowed to drink my tea at my house and do all the modules. It will cost £3085 and the learning will be 'experiential'.

Module 1: Dealing with Rejection

I will lock you in my cellar and scream 'you are crap' at you at random intervals. Sometimes I will throw things. Every now and again I will come down into the cellar and give you a cuddle and stroke your hair. I will say, 'such talent!' and when you are relaxed and smiling I will quickly punch you in your stomach and say 'but still crap!'

Module 2: Writing Process

I will tie you to my writing chair. I might let you have a cushion. You are allowed to get up to go to the bathroom and to drink water. But nothing else. Your phone will beep a lot and eventually the friends you are ignoring will get angry with you, give up, and go away. When you are trying to write I will randomly delete paragraphs of your work and whisper things like 'all your friends think you are a pillock' into your ears.

Module 3: Drafting

Every time you write something I will print it out and show it to all my friends. We will sit in a pub and laugh at it. We will make notes on it in coloured pens. Everything we write will be instructions on how to make it better. We will send you back the pages. You won't be able to read our writing. You will need to implement all the suggestions into future drafts, even when they are contradictory. We will print out your future drafts and take them back to the pub. This will take a very long time.

Module 4: Publicity and Promotion

I will teach you how to Google yourself. You will do this every day, until you are banned from using the computer at work. At the end of the course you will have to drink a bottle of gin and then read your work to me. I will talk loudly and send text messages to random people while you are reading. I will ask you to sign your book and then sell it on ebay. I will send you the ebay link. No-one will buy your book even though the bidding starts at 1p and the postage is free.

There might be some more modules. I am not sure yet. For the full MA experience I will loose your final submission and give you a certificate I made on MS Word and laminated at work. I will look you up a few years later and me and all my friends will tell you you can't write because you did my MA course and you now sound just like everyone else who has done it. Then I will ask you for some more money in return for providing 'editorial help' with your manuscript.

Jenn Ashworth is very funny and clever, and this sounds like an excellent course for any budding writers. 

You can also find Jenn and her lies at Sh