A Masters in Writing: 5 Ways to Get a Free Education
By: Lindsay Redifer
Tags: Publishing, Writing, Writing Tips, Education, The Writing Life

A Masters in Writing: 5 Ways to Get a Free Education

Learn, publish, and plan a career

Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash

I remember the first time I learned about the amazing MFA writing program offered by Iowa State. The thought of it made me drool. Long, chilly fall days in libraries, sitting at big wooden tables with my fellow authors. Chats with professors who lived to discuss literature and hobnobbed with the best writers in the world.

Then I saw the program’s price and settled for a communications degree at the Univsersity of Idaho.

We all love the idea of surrendering our lives to a two-year program of nothing but beautiful books and late nights writing sessions with gangs of lit nerds, but for many, it can’t happen. However, there are tons of great ways to get your hands on a graduate program-style education and push yourself as a writer.

First, you need a great class.

Lectures

There are a million writing podcasts out there, but I’ve found a few that I keep coming back to as a creator. The hosts act more like friendly teachers than fussy industry experts and offer a means to interact with them directly.

Start with This — Hosts Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor are avid readers and prolific writers. Fink’s original show Welcome to Night Vale shocked the world with its dark take on community radio and remains a hit. His writer’s voice feels so unique to anyone else’s, so I ran to hear his advice once his writing show came out.

In Start with This, the two creators let you behind the curtain and feel like you’re having coffee with your nerdiest friends. They cover topics like Lovecraftian Horror, Hooptedoodle, and why Perfection is for Assholes. I especially love the end of each episode, the Consume and Create segment, a moment when the hosts give you something to read or watch and a writing prompt.

They make sure any reading they suggest is available for free and offer you two options for online communities where you can share your creations with fellow fans, turning a podcast into a study group.

Writing Class Radio —This is the place for nonfiction writers. Hosts Allison Langer and Andrea Askowitz declare in each episode that “In writing class, we tell the truth.”

Each episode follows an assignment given to their adult writing class. Then they choose one essay and talk about how the writer developed his or her piece. The author gets to read the final draft to the class and the live reading becomes part of the show.

I love how the emotional reactions of the students can be heard at each reading, the way each student gets to read their own work and be featured on the show, and the spirit of the hosts. After each reading, they’re giddy with emotion that one of their own wrote such a beautiful piece and they gush with praise.

Writing Class Radio also comes with an online community and the site lists all the prompts from class, so you can jump in and write whenever you’re ready.

Imaginary Worlds — This is the place for anyone who lives for fantasy, science fiction, fandom of all kinds, and the ins and outs of connecting with an audience.

Host Eric Molinsky looks beyond books and movies to the people who love them and how they interact with their favorite authors. It’s an academic take on how some stories stay classics for decades, deep dives into lesser-known genres like Solar Punk, or how bestselling authors map out characters.

Imaginary doesn’t present itself as a writing podcast, yet I learn buckets of new things every time I listen. I always come away with lots of great new things to read, a deeper understanding of culture, and the keys to great stories.

Read like a grad student

I know, writing blogs and books about writing are literally everywhere you look. But some are worth your time. Here’s what I lean on and where I find super cheap, (and sometimes free) books on writing.

Writing Routines — This blog doubles as a great newsletter. Articles appear in full in your inbox and writers get deep into how they stay motivated, what keeps them going, and why they love writing.

I like the blog because the author keeps it simple. He asks authors to tell the audience how they write. He even asks the same set of questions to each author, though the answers are always wildly different.

The entries feel like a mini guest-lecture from a bestselling author and keep you motivated to keep going. And best of all — it’s free!

Writer’s Digest — Full disclosure, I don’t reference the digest that much. It can feel a bit old-school and spends most of its space hawking expensive writer conferences.

However, the digest also gives readers great places to find freebie books, giveaways, or awesome deals. I check in on the digest the same way my mom used to skim the coupons in the daily paper. I don’t live by it, but it has its use.

If you find an article with links to free stuff, keep in mind they don’t update often. Check the date to make sure you’re not reading about deals from 2014.

Your hometown (digital) library — Back in Nampa, Idaho, I grew up in the library. I had a special basket to carry my books home, I went to story hours, I spent whole afternoons in the ugly green armchairs whenever I got the chance.

I adored how old-fashioned the place felt and the mothball smell of the hardbacks. I fell in love with Nampa’s public library anew when they digitized their collection and gave people a new way to read.

Digital checkouts are available to anyone eligible for a library card. If you’re not sure how to get started, visit your library’s website or give them a call. They can give you a digital account free of charge, but borrowing ebooks from a library requires patience.

Just like checking out a physical book, borrowing an ebook requires you to wait until one becomes available. You have to get your name on a list until a copy gets returned from the latest reader and you only have the book for a short time yourself.

But hey, free stuff comes with limits. Organize your reading time; it’s worth it.

Annotate

Annotated reading, or active reading, happens when you make notes as you read towards a specific goal. Maybe you want to record all the uses of color in a novel or figurative language in a true story. Or you can note down anything that strikes you emotionally.

I like to annotate by act and plot point. I divide my book’s story pages into eight sections, then mark the inciting incident through to the falling action. I’ve also done this with students to help them practice taking notes. As you reach the end of each section, you write notes about what happened, then anything that stuck with you and how you felt about it.

Annotation can happen a million ways. A lot of booktubers publish videos about how to annotate. If you love colored tabs and doing deep dives into stories, these videos will leave you mesmerized.

Find a community

Learning alone is rough! Why go it on your own? Find a writing community to keep yourself accountable, get a broader perspective on your own writing, and share your passion.

Any decent writing program would place you in a group or cohort of fellow writers. There’s no reason you can’t do this on your own.

Meet in person

Please don’t do this unless you can do it without risk. That said, here are some ways to find local writers.

Check out MeetUp.com — To be fair, this is only free if you use the bare minimum of the site’s membership. But, use it right and this free resource can introduce you to a great new creative group.

The key to MeetUp is to enter with an open mind. I used this site to organize my bilingual writer’s group in Mexico and felt shocked by how many people left after one meeting because our group didn’t fit their arbitrary expectations. Some insisted we focus on nonfiction, (we have a fiction majority), others only wanted to promote their own books. Some left after we pointed out some minor mistakes in their prose, (gently, of course).

If you join a gang of writers, go in with zero expectations. Remember that you can get something out of every group, no matter the structure. If you take it at face value and give it a try, you may learn some invaluable lesson that influences your writing like you never imagined.

Meet online

My guess is you’re doing something like this already thanks to the pandemic. My own group hit pause once the virus came to Mexico — we tried meeting online several times but couldn’t get the same spirit of the group we had before the illness closed down our usual cafe.

That said, a lot of people I know have virtual writing groups. Zoom is great for these because you can record each session so everyone can access helpful comments long after they’re suggested. GoogleMeet and Skype have record options, too, but only Skype recordings are free.

Try finding a good writers group via Reddit or Facebook with a quick search, then see how they get together. I like doing it this way because it’s easier to find genre-specific groups, like Writers of Horror.

Create a group

This last option requires that you be safe, (please!) and think about what kind of writers group you want.

When I set out to start a group in Mexico, I had to decide if I wanted to focus on expats, locals, a mix of both, and what languages would be permitted. I ended up creating a bilingual group focused on local writers who wanted to publish in English and Spanish. It’s an awesome set of people and they’ve gotten me through a lot of challenges in my own writing.

Before you send out invites or start a class, think about what kind of group you want. Should it be nation-wide, or local? Age specific? Queer? Republican?

A niche works well to help you find people who can work together, help you create, and keep each other motivated.

Then, you need a structure. I like the way AA starts each meeting. You ask for any newcomers to introduce themselves and give them one question to answer. For example:

“My name is Lindsay and my favorite book is American Gods,” or something similar. Then everyone else says their name and gives their answer to the same question. That gets everyone on the same wavelength.

Then you can open it up to sharing, or you can use the time to write as a group. If you’re already experienced, you can share something about a writing technique, then give the group a chance to try it.

Aim for about two hours a week with your cohort. Once a month is okay, but you won’t get the same chemistry as a group that meets more often.

Get Writing

Now comes the hard put — putting all your new knowledge into a daily writing practice.

A masters program requires you to write everyday. You can do this on your own, but you’ll need to be strict with yourself as you’re sans professor.

Start with morning pages, a practice defined by Julia Cameron. Grab any notebook, sit in a quiet room, and let all the junk in your head come pouring out. Cameron recommends three full pages of messy, scribbly writing. She swears it clears out your subconcious and gets you focused for sharper, more driven pieces throughout the day.

Then get into a writing practice. Medium is great for this; you can publish once a day and immediately see if you’ve got something worth reading by checking your stats page. You might think your poetry is to die for, but then get a reality check when you see the actual numbers next to the piece.

Remember, feedback is not gospel. You can take it to heart or ignore it, up to you. I like to adjust my writing according to what I see in my stats. A piece I wrote about my love of podcasts flopped, while my deep dive into how depression affected my writing was a hit.

Other places to publish are Wattpad, a spot to publish your book one chapter at a time. Wattpad pays, but I’m unclear on the details as I’ve never used it. However, many authors develop fiction on this platform. Click here to give it a try.

You can avoid publishing if you like by having a writer’s journal for entries each day. Do this if you have a good place to share what you’re working on and can get some feedback. Or, try a bullet journal to challenge yourself.

Once your writing is underway, you start to find your voice and start thinking about how to go pro, you need a plan.

Career Planning

Writers today have millions of places to find ways to get paid with articles, books, or poems, and how to find agents.

Here are some free resources and publications to help you make that money.

Writer Magazines

Certain publications come out with the sole purpose of helping writers find editors, agents, and book publishers. Two of my favorites are Authors Publish, great for writing advice and finding where to publish your fiction and poetry, and Freedom with Writing.

Freedom with Writing gears towards short story writers, freelancers, journalists, and people looking for writing grants. They also let you know about high-paying contests should you choose to enter.

Authors Publish also alerts readers to any publishing houses taking submissions from unrepresented authors. If you can’t face the hunt for an agent, you can try getting a smaller book deal on your own with their help.

Twitter

Tons of editors, publishers, and agents hang out on Twitter! I think agents in particular prefer a twitter-sized pitch because any book you can describe in such a format is one you’ve worked on, developed, and polished already.

Writer’s Digest has a long list of agents to follow on Twitter to get you started, but look for any publishing house names on Twitter. The literary world seems to prefer this platform more than any other, so get on there!

Twitter also features pitch fests at certain times of the year. This is when you can contact an agent directly and send your quick pitch of what you’re working on. Search hashtags #PitMad, #DVPit, and #PBPitch to see past examples and prepare your boiled down idea. Pay attention to which pitches get a heart at the bottom — that’s an agent saying “more please!”

Self-Publish

There are a million ways to self-publish, so I don’t want to get into them all here. However, I will say that self-publishing should not cost you thousands upon thousands of dollars.

Be wary of any group or coach that wants you to pay for services to publish your own work. Amazon.com has Kindle Create to make publishing by yourself direct and easy. Kindle Singles is available for any shorter works you want to put online, (like several Medium articles combined into a short book), or your poetry.

Do spend money on a few things. First, an ISBN so you own the rights to your work. You need one for the digital version and one for any physical version of your book. Then, you need, need, need a professional cover. I don’t care how many people tell you what a great artist you are, get a pro.

Book covers are more than a nice picture. They require titles with perfectly-spaced letters, a balance of colors, an emotional response from shoppers, and a clear representation of your genre. I see homemade covers all the time and I consistently hate them and feel sorry for the author — bad covers kill sales.

You could also hire someone to write your blurb and your book ads, though there are plenty of ways to try these on your own. You can market your book for free with some creativity.

Try starting a Facebook group to build up your audience, build up a following on Patreon.com or Kickstarter. IngramSpark offers some free courses to help you get a better idea of creating an author platform and additional steps to self-publish.

Is this possible?

That depends on you. If you’re devoted to learning and taking some risks, then creating your own masters-style course is more than possible.

Plot out what parts of this plan you want to tackle first, when you want to start, and how many hours a day you can devote to your zero-dollar masters. Imagine if you spent one hour a day focusing on your writing education. By the end of the year, you’d have 365 hours worth of coursework done, absolutely free!

Will this make you a writer? I hope so. I think everyone has at least one book in them and should make an effort to write it. More than that, efforts like these make us better workers, amazing communicators, and help us improve our understanding of ourselves. That’s worth more than money; that’s something deserving of our time and effort.

Please let me know if you’ve found any great freebies for writers online or otherwise. I love to learn more about how to expand my skills without going broke.

And please, keep writing!