A Write of Passage Review

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Reflections from a 5 week online writing course

You probably already write. You may have a journal, an old blog, or a semi-active Twitter account. But you’ve always wanted to do more. You follow authors and writers that inspire you. You want to publish consistently. You want to write more compelling pieces. You want to have a regular newsletter that people actively engage with. But you never really knew how - or where - to start.

If this resonates with you, you’re not alone. Lev Naginsky and I shared a similar experience. Here we share the most impactful principles and tools we learned from our time in an online writing course, as well as the tangible benefits we’ve seen since the course ended.

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The fastest way to learn a new language? Act like a child.

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I was two months into my new job in Rio de Janeiro when I asked my co-worker to hand me a hard penis.

His gaze shifted towards me and his eyes paused, narrowed, and a cheeky grin slowly came across his face. Within ten seconds the normally stoic Jose was on the floor, doubled over laughing. “Oh shit,” I thought, “What did I just say?”

It wasn’t the first time I’d made a mistake when learning Portuguese and it wouldn’t be the last. Confusing ‘pão duro’ for ‘pau duro’ (the squiggly line, the tilde, above the ‘a’) proved to be the fatal error – instead of asking for bread, like I had intended, I had asked Jose for something very different.

The nasal tone of the tilde is a critical distinction among many similarly sounding words in Brazilian Portuguese. But no matter how many times I had tried learning the language with audio tapes, YouTube videos, or through immersion, the lesson had never really sunk in until that one fatal error I made with Jose.

I now pay very close attention to the tilde when speaking Portuguese.

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The definitive answer when someone asks 'What do you do?'

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This is a curious question.

When asked by an Uber driver I often respond with “I am in the water industry” - and quickly follow-up by asking ‘And you? Is this your 9-5?” That’s often enough to keep them talking and take the focus off of me.

I’ve never been particularly good at answering this question. I don’t know why.

In part I feel like most people that ask aren’t genuinely interested in hearing the answer. At best, it’s meant to be a conversation starter and a way to build common ground so they can find a way to make a potentially awkward car ride more enjoyable. At worst it’s a way to discover how much money you make, your political or religious affiliations, your sexuality, ethnicity, or something more secret.

And then, typically, talk about themselves.

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