Twenty years ago there was only one postgraduate course in Creative Writing in the UK. Now there is an industry of over two hundred, providing employment for past writers and education for future ones.
But it is education at a price.
Actually education is probably the wrong word to describe a Creative Writing MA. Education implies some form of schooling or training in a subject but, bizarrely, any published author who once paid (on average) £10,000 for their Creative Writing MA is always and without exception quick to say that the course ‘didn’t teach them how to write’. The rather explicit implication being that they could do that anyway. So what, then, did this £10,000 educational course that teaches nothing actually do for them? It gave them the confidence to write. It gave them the discipline to write – And, most of all, it gave them the contacts needed to succeed in 'the Biz'.

The confidence comes, apparently, from talking about your writing with other people who have also paid £10,000 to talk about your writing (and, unfortunately, their own). The discipline comes from the fear of having no writing to talk about. The contacts come from the publishers (i.e. editors) and agents who flock to lecture would-be writers about how to get on in ‘the Biz’ (the answer being to pay £10,000 to meet and listen to flocking publishers and agents); publishers and agents who flock because anyone accepted on a postgraduate course in Creative Writing must be able to write – after all, they’ll soon have an MA in Creative Writing – and are thus much more worthy of the precious time of a publisher or agent than some manuscript which was sent to them, unsolicited, and might actually require them to exercise their own judgment (which due to the twin evils of cocaine and post-modernism have rendered most publishing people incapable of arousing). Welcome to the wonderful world of words.

So what’s the alternative? I’ll tell you and save you £10,000.

First, you write your novel. All by yourself, with no talking. 80,000 words is a reasonable length and six months a realistic timetable (of about 3,500 words a week or 500 a day – rain or shine, good or bad). Once you’ve finished, put it away for at least three months and start reading some books again. You’re particularly looking for books that are even slightly similar to your own (genre, subject matter etc). Read these books and make lists of their publishers. Look up their addresses in the Writers' & Artists’ Yearbook. Now take out your novel again and re-read it; is it honestly as good as you remember it? Is it honestly as good as the books you think are similar? If the answers are yes and yes, then post the first three chapters of your novel with a cover letter to the publishers of the books most similar to your own. You might even send a sample of your work to a writer you admire, via their publisher, for advice. Now start working on your second book while waiting for the replies and inevitable rejections from publishers.
But if you honestly believe your work to be better than other books you have read, then do not be deterred because there are still publishers and agents who don’t spend all their days lurking around Creative Writing courses (though you might want to hurry).
And remember, if all else fails, you could always become a teacher on a Creative Writing Course, because you don’t actually need to be a published author to teach on such a course, though you would need an MA –
In Creative Writing.

In 2003 David Peace was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of Young British Novelists'. His latest novel, GB84, set amid the 1984 miners' strike, was published earlier this year. In 1994 he took up a teaching post in Tokyo and now lives there with his family.