There seems to be a growing conviction in both comments on the blogosphere and in the real world that one needs a degree in Being A Writer - specifically, an MFA or other degree in creative writing. That agents, editors and even readers will roundly dismiss any upstart daring enough to query, write or publish without such an esteemed qualification.

Bollocks. I should know: I have one. Hell, technically I have two.

Honestly, I blame this misconception largely on the glut of creative writing degrees and courses that began not too long ago, and the marketing that accompanied them. With so many universities claiming their degree teaches you how to hone your fiction and characters and learn what it takes to create a good piece of writing, it's somewhat inevitable that would-be writers form the impression this is the only way to learn to hone your fiction and characters. But a degree isn't always helpful to a budding writer. Sometimes they can do more harm than good. University degrees, by and large, are not for the everyday workforce. You can learn as much as you like about economics and finance, or policy and law, or management and team-building - whatever's your poison - but any ex-student will tell you: the minute you get into the real world, you find that what you spent three years learning was incomplete, idealistic and not wholly relevant to what you're actually doing.

The creative and fine arts degrees really aren't any different. Why would they be - the entire construct is wholly artificial. Go to classes, sit in tutorials and lectures, hand in some pieces that are graded and handed back. That's not how the publishing world works. People will not be nice about your story because they're sitting in the same room as you. That's not the main problem with them, though.

The problem is: they confuse 'literature' with 'good writing'.

I snuck through my undergraduate and honours in Creative Writing knowing that what I really loved was speculative fiction. I loved the play of ideas and fantastic creations, the 'what-if' and 'why'. But what I was expected to write was literature. We studied short stories from literary journals, Hemingway, Proust, classics like 'The Overcoat' and others that, though I've forgotten their titles and authors, stuck with me. And a lot of ones that didn't, to be honest. All literary. Not a single piece of genre fiction, not even a mention of the tropes, techniques or expectations of any type of popular fiction.

And there was a very clear reason why. In the eyes of the faculty, popular fiction wasn't really writing. Anyone could do that. It wasn't worthwhile. You want to do something worthwhile, don't you? We thought so. So let's have no more of this genre nonsense. You can do so much better than that.

That's the crux of it. They don't just teach the art of writing, they teach a cultural impression, an assumed shame. They teach that literature is better, worthier, than popular fiction. It can cripple the career of the unsuspecting genre writer, who is learning not only to write literature instead of their genre (and they are very, very different), but to shy away from what they really love to create. Feeling that they 'should' be writing something 'better' than what they want to.

Writing and editing and sending stories out is difficult enough without adding in the notion that this isn't a worthwhile use of your time and talent, or that your chosen genre is really just munge. But it can take a long time to unravel the prejudices instilled.

Creative writing courses can offer a great deal of technical development, but think carefully about what you want to gain from it beforehand. Examine who will be teaching you. What do they write? (And if they don't write, why bother?) What are they like? What are you likely to learn from this course, and is that what you want to get out of one? Consider different ways of learning what you're after - community classes, writing groups, conventions, short courses, writing books and the good old fashioned practise-like-crazy.

And for heaven's sake, don't go blundering into a degree because you think no one will pay attention to you otherwise. There is no degree in Being A Writer. There's just practise and hard work.

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