Writing courses and how they benefit writing habits

I love writing courses, especially face-to-face ones. I always meet such interesting people and am exposed to amazing minds and incredible ideas. It stretches my mind and forces me to try new things with my writing. I always come out writing better, writing happier.
 
Last week, I began The Year of the Novel with Venero Armanno. Week one was the overview. We touched on a lot of things such as writing habits, structure, and voice. We began looking at character, their background and conflicts.
 
We were given homework!
 
I don’t know if it makes me a nerd or not—I live on the edge of nerdness anyway (or perhaps not so much on the edge)—but I love homework. It’s a great way to see if I’ve understood the conversations during the day and to try it out on my own, and to find out how it works best for me. So far I haven't reached my set goal of 3000 a week. I'll need to write more than that to finish the book by my self-imposed deadline, but it's a good number to start with.
 
I’ll admit I’m still struggling with my story—so much so I can’t decide where to start it or what the first ten pages should show. In my head the idea is a good one, but every time I write a few thousand words, it reads like a stereotyped space opera. The uniqueness of the idea isn’t showing through.
 
I’ve thought about giving up a number of times. I’ve put this story away to think about, a number of times. This time, I want to get it written. I’m not giving up. I’ll find the way to make this story work.