Ashbee - it would be great if we could keep this going so perhaps W&H could be persuaded to have a separate slot for this.

I have mixed feelings about doing a writing course - for one thing, I am more interested in improving my writing at this stage and not really in the 'marketing' side just yet and, as you said Ashbee, I think some courses do focus on selling your work. Also (and I am probably quite wrong here!), are writers born or made - does a person with the talent to write need a course or does the writing come naturally? I am certainly not saying that we can't learn anything - just that I wonder whether talent is either there or not. Or, is it that a writing course brings out a talent that needs a bit of encouragement?

gothfairy - your writing sounds fascinating.

I go through stages with keeping a journal. Last year for my birthday a friend (someone who has always encouraged me to write and who keeps a daily journal herself) gave me several good quality blank notebooks and said they were for my journal. What a great gift they were! My journals are not descriptions of everything that happens in a particular day or period of my life, but more my reactions to the things that happen.

Certainly, as you said Flutterfly, I find that emotional highs and lows affect what and how I write. I'm not sure that this makes my writing particularly personal to me (other than in my journal) - it's just that I seem able to express what I need in my writing generally, if that makes sense.