What is in a course?

I’m a course person. I’m a quilter, sewer and wannabe novelist, and have participated in (and taught) courses on all of these. During Covid I did an online Sashiko (Japanese sewing) course with my mum, who lives in Manchester. Just the two of us and the teacher, united across 200 miles by some blue thread and an old piece of white fabric. I’ve participated in three Arvon courses: one as a wannabe writer wondering if I could write a novel, two as a screenwriting tutor helping new writers shape and write their scenes. Below is a photo from the marbling course I did with my kids over the Summer.

This weekend at Ealing Studios I’m hosting 'Writing Successful TV Drama with Eleanor Greene.' If you’re thinking of coming but not sure, here’s why I love courses:

You get out of the house and out of your head. You meet other people doing the same thing as you - the thing you love, that maybe nobody else quite understands. You get to geek out on details that even your closest friends might be bored by. You check out the teacher as distraction. Maybe they’re awful, and you learn just as much from what you dislike about how they teach as what you positively take away.

There might only be one tiny thing you pick up, that changes everything for you. When I took a quilting course, that thing was being told to iron each seam before sewing it to the next. Suddenly my quilts came out flatter, prettier, more professional.

Crucially, you might just meet someone who gets you, who becomes a collaborator, sparring partner, and professional friend for life. Those are the people you need in this industry.

My friendship with Chris Jones, with whom I’ve created this weekend, grew from a single conversation at the end of a course he was running. My friend Natalia Cohen, who broke a world record rowing the Pacific in a boat called Doris, wrote recently about how one conversation can change the entire direction of your life.