VERBATIM

Oh, for the good old days, when writing courses had no-nonsense names such as “Screenwriting,” “The Short Story,” “Writing for Children,” “Novel Writing.”

Now in the physician-shrink-thyself ‘90s, everyone and his Inner Child wants to see his name on the bestseller list, and UCLA Extension is happy to help. The number of writing courses the extension offers has doubled to 450 and includes such heady titles as: “The Alien Perspective,” “The Voice Within,” “Beneath the Mask,” “Writing After 5 p.m.,” “Writing the Psychobiography” and “A Beat Generation Workshop.”

A few favorites:

* “If You Can Talk, You Can Write.” Course description: “Learn how to ‘talk’ on paper by employing easily acquired, concrete techniques. Prerequisite: Knowing how to talk and having a fear of writing.” A sensible start.

* “Male Muse/Female Muse.” “Learn to mate the primal masculine and primal feminine to produce writing that is powerfully alive.” Truly safe sex.

* “Writing for Medusa: The Creative Transformation of Anger.” “Uses the mythological Medusa to focus discussion and creative writing sparked by the issues of power and rage with which women struggle.” Not a good choice if you’re looking to meet “girls.”

* “Using the Right Brain to Write Creatively.” “Right-brain energy is channeled into the making of creative vignettes, word portraits, poetry and short stories.” With any luck, the left brain is busy with a screenplay.

* “A Jungian Approach to Creative Writing.” “Focuses on the uses of dreamcraft, creative visualization and olfactory memory recall to facilitate the creative writing process.” I think I write; therefore, I am writing.