There two obvious ways to get an education in writing.
Formal and informal.
The formal way would be through a traditional MFA.
You might get an undergraduate degree in English and then go after the MFA at somewhere like the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
But don’t discount the informal route too quickly.
After all, Ryan Holiday, Truman Capote, Jack London, William Faulkner, and Gore Vidal didn’t go to college.
As far as I can tell, all they ever did was read and practice their writing.
College and grad school was great and all – for there is much to learn.
But sometimes it feels like I wasted 4 – 8 years of productive time.
You don’t need writing classes or seminars any more than you need this or any other book on writing. Faulkner learned his trade while working in the Oxford, Mississippi, post office. Other writers have learned the basics while serving in the Navy, working in steel mills, or doing time in America’s finer crossbar hotels. I learned the most valuable (and commercial) part of my life’s work while washing motel sheets and restaurant tablecloths at the New Franklin Laundry in Bangor. You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself. These lessons almost always occur with the study door closed. Writing-class discussions can often be intellectually stimulating and great fun, but they also often stray far afield from the actual nuts-and-bolts business of writing.
-Stephen King, On Writing
