~from Ami
The first time I ever took an online class was in 1997. I sat at my little black-and-white Mac and tried to follow along. At the time, I was trying to break into the nonfiction market, so I was taking a class on query letters. The class, as most of them were those years ago, was in a chatroom format. I despise chatrooms to this day! The teacher would type a few lines and then anyone could pitch in with questions and comments. It was, in a word, chaos. The group met at a certain time each week. You could print out the transcript of each lecture, which normally came out to about 20-30 pages of people interrupting each other and responding to questions from fifteen lines up. Yikes.

All that to say, with some trepidation I jumped back into the foray this month with a class that I just couldn't resist. But what a great experience! The class was: Introverts and Extroverts Develop Your Writing Presence Now: Creating a Career Plan Built on Your Strengths taught by Gwen Shuster-Hayes. The format was great- since the class ran on a digest, an email arrived every couple of days containing the lecture. Students then posted their homework, questions, and comments. Some of Gwen's lectures literally made me cry- she was very practical but at the same time pushed us to WRITE DOWN our dreams and follow through!

Since I'm a confirmed introvert, this class was just what I needed. Sometimes I feel like I won't ever sell books because I don't have an "in your face" personality. I prefer to sit waaaaay back in the corner and observe. Not good when you have a product to sell. But this class taught me ways I can use my introversion to my advantage, that I don't have to feel bad because I'm not an extrovert. I feel quite lucky to be surrounded by friends and family who are extroverted, and I'm working on feeling lucky to be an introvert myself.