A community of online writers

Takeaways from the first live session of Write of Passage

I’m taking David Perell’s online writing class, Write of Passage. In its first live session, 200 people from all over the world attended.

In breakout rooms, I met some students. I was surprised by how diverse everyone’s background is, yet how similar that everyone shares the passion for ideas and writing. I met an energy trader from Calgary, Canada. I met a software engineer from Berlin who wants to start an offline dating app that guides the person (typically the man) who initiates. I met a KPMG consultant from London. Many people are considering a career change, which starts with writing online. I already feel a sense of community. 

Bias for action

Perell gave some advice on making the best of the coming five weeks, which the course runs. The goal is to be comfortable with the imperfection of your work without being sloppy. The class will challenge you. It will move faster. But if you commit to the course as a job, you will accelerate your writing with an extra pulse of rocket energy.  

Writing from Abundance

The first writing habit I resonated with is to capture information. Take notes while you read. Write down thoughts after you have an exciting conversation. Take notes with dictation on the move. Curate the information you consume. Focus on ideas that are nuanced, not sensational. 

When you have such a system, you don’t write from a blank page. You write from plenty of material. Instead of wrestling with the writer’s block, you can focus on the structure and the writing. For example, I wrote this entire post in an hour from the notes I took in the first class. 

12 favorite problems

One writing habit I loved to learn is the “12 favorite problems”. The idea is to keep a dozen of your favorite problems often present in your mind. For me, it helps to organize my messy streams of consciousness into nice buckets. This idea comes from Richard Feynman’s advice on being a genius. Feynman said, 

“You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, 'How did he do it? He must be a genius!”

The class drafted some favorite problems on the spot. One of my favorite problems is “how do we make life’s work more satisfying? And how would technology impact this?”

Some other students shared that I found interesting: 

• How can we use data visualization to actually see the quality of life playing out in an entire economy - village, company, community, or nation? 

• What does a responsible and constructive public discourse around carbon removal look like and how can I help bring that about?

Harper Lee’s story

Perell ended the class with a touching story. When Harper Lee was a struggling writer, trying to balance her job and finding time to write, she received a Christmas gift in an envelope one day. A check lies in it, with a note from a friend that says, “You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.’’ She took a year off and wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Give yourself the treasure of time to write.