I am a mum.

That is my full-time job. I have two little girls who demand my attention at odd hours of the day, every day.

And like many others with full-time jobs, taking up another full-time course or going to university to acquire another diploma is not an option.

For those of us who face these challenges, whether it be time or financing, the internet is our best friend when finding free or low-cost courses to perfect a craft. 

A couple of months before the holy month of Ramadan and I was in a state of panic. I had made the spicy chicken filling for my samoosas with little effort.

Now came the daunting task of filling them into sheets of dough and folding them into neat little triangles.

How hard could it be? 

After a few failed attempts, my husband walked by and noticed the stressed, exasperated look on my face. “I don’t know how to fold these things,” I told him, ready to throw in the towel, or sheet of dough in this case.

“Why don’t you just watch a YouTube tutorial?” He asked as if it was the most obvious solution.

Unsure whether there would be such a tutorial, I took his advice immediately. I can now fold samoosas at an impressive rate if I do say so myself. 

My point is that if you are concerned about needing guidance or more knowledge, YouTube could be the first place to start. 

After watching a dozen videos on writing following the Youtube algorithm, I realized I needed more of a structured approach. A little googling (Google is now my friend) led me to a great course on Udemy.

The first place I started, however, was Udemy. My husband kindly signed me up for a writing course called The Foundations of Fiction (Writing Mastery).

The course is presented by two fiction authors. It covers all the basics, as well as goes into detail about fiction writing.

They offer exercises along the way to help you practice all the techniques you learn, after which they tell you how they approached the exercise.

I found the writing prompts exciting and challenging at the same time. 

Taking notes along the way and saving my writing exercises for reference should I ever need them, I managed to complete the course.

I now felt equipped to start creating characters and worlds of my own. 

An now with ChatGPT, it’s so easy to find resources to learn to improve your writing. If you don’t know how to use ChatGPT, a great site I’ve found to guide you to do so many useful things is ChatGPT guide

ChatGPT Guide says it provides “easy to follow guides for normal people”, and I have learnt tonnes of useful things to do on ChatGPT from that site including tips for fiction writing. So highly recommended.

My challenge though: What is my story going to be?