I’m the type of person who loves to learn new things. When I finished graduate school, I was happy to be done with classes and assignments, but it wasn’t long before I missed the classroom. To deal with my itch to learn, I regularly sign up for free teleclasses, read books and websites on topics that interest me, and ask a lot of questions. It’s just part of who I am. And I think it benefits my writing to not only learn more about the craft of writing, but to learn about issues and topics that I can use in my stories.

The problem with learning new things is that there’s only so much time for classes and assignments when I’m working full time and freelancing in the evenings and on weekends. Keeping that in mind, about a month ago, I signed up for an essay writing class through The Renegade Writer Blog. I really enjoy writing essays, but I’ve had some trouble figuring out how and where to get them published. Since one of my goals for 2010 is to send out and publish more articles and essays, I thought taking a class on essay writing and publication would be a great investment of both time and money. It would be a challenge to fit the assignments into my schedule, but I was willing and ready to make whatever sacrifices I needed to make for the six weeks I’d be taking the class.

Then, a week or so ago, I entered a contest to win free access to a class on writing for trade magazines, also offered through The Renegade Writer Blog. I don’t normally win contests—I’m just not very lucky that way—so I wasn’t particularly worried that the class started on the same day as the essay writing class. In fact, I didn’t think about the contest again until I received a call from the instructor, Pat Curry, checking to make sure I was, in fact, interested in taking the class and letting me know I’d won the contest. Me! I had WON!

And now I had a dilemma.

Did I accept the prize knowing I’d benefit from learning about writing for trade magazines, a market I’ve been wanting to take a stab at, but would being stretching my time and energy thin? Or did I pass on the opportunity and let someone with more time take the prize?

It didn’t take much convincing from Pat for me to decide to give it a go. So starting today, I’m taking two classes on very different topics. I’ll be busy, so I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for blogging, but I do plan to blog about the experience as much as I can. I’m sure that I’ll be learning plenty, not only about essay writing and writing for trade magazines, but also about my habits, strengths and weaknesses; how to manage my time more effectively; and ways to put new knowledge to work in my writing business.

Here’s to learning something new!