Recently, I participated in a week-long online class called “Write with One Story.” It cost $60US for non-members and $50US for members and is run through a platform called Haiku Learning. I was hesitant to take the class because I’m so, so busy now with work (teaching college English), and of course, there is my fun time for making jewelry and knitting and doll crafts, that seems almost non-existent these days. But, I figured for the price I’d give it a shot.

My overall take on the class was that I got a lot out of it, and given different circumstances in my life, I definitely plan to take more online offerings from One Story. However, I thought it might be helpful to anyone thinking of taking one of their courses if I offered my personal and subjective pros and cons, in no particular order:

Pros:

• I learned a lot and came away with functional writing exercises that I am sure I will find useful if I ever need some writing inspiration or a kick start to my creative writing efforts in the future.
• I met so many cool and talented writers. All but a few were very kind and generous with their feedback.
• I now have connected out of class with some of my fellow writing students, and we have formed a loose group to help each other with our writing work outside of class now.
• Online convenience can’t be beat. While there are writing conferences and even a few groups I could go to that aren’t super far away, I don’t have the time or energy to do that most of the time.
• The instructors were top-notch, not enough words to praise them.
• It was challenging, a good way. It made me work at my writing.

Cons:

• I felt rushed. While supposedly the assignments aren’t suppose to take more than an hour, I am just not a fast writer.
• If you want feedback from your fellow students, obviously, you must offer feedback as well. This meant not only did I have one day to quickly get my writing assignment done, I had to also read loads of other work by students in my class and provide feedback. I actually started to like that part of the class experience more than I thought I would, but it was a lot to do in one day.
• Some of the exercises I had issues connecting to, so again, given that I had one day to write, I felt like I needed more time to think.
• Okay, yes, a few comments did hurt my tender, precious, snowflake feelings, but I know I have to put my big girl panties on when I do something like this.
• The platform (Haiku Learning) could be less wonky. For example, you can make your settings so you are notified when someone comments on something you wrote or commented on, but then when you click on the email link, you are just sent to a general discussion page and have to sort through posts to find what you are looking for.