We learn to write in school. Most of us did, anyway.

There we learned the basics, did the work to acquire what was on the school program, and become functional in this area of knowledge.

We read the required works and, if we are lucky, we find some books that hook us into reading outside school… and if we are really lucky, we start to enjoy all the written papers we are assigned to do, and all chances to try new things out in this domain.

This was how I started to like poetry. By myself and having the opportunity to use it on school papers.

But when school is over, and college options were not our heart’s choices, we get to real life and start realising that if we want to know more about one particular subject, we have to go find the information by ourselves…

There will be no more holding hands to help us cross the street.

At the time most of us didn’t know we should have chosen other path more aligned with our personal tastes. And surely didn’t know that we should learn for and by ourselves.

Corporate life gives us a good once over on fitting in, not on being our best and standing out. And during the first decade of it we still had dreams. We worked in a kind of well paid, for the current standards, corporate job and took every hit in the head, believing that it was what we were supposed to do.

All that we learn, serves us. Nobody can open our heads in half and stuck information there for us to use later.

Maybe we have more inclination to learn certain things, or find more pleasure in knowing more about this, and not so much about that. And this is okay. We should choose to learn primarily things that we like.

But we also have a fair amount of will to accept that learning some things require a little more effort on our part.

And this may not be easy but it is essential to get to where we want to be. We have to go through a lot of new experiences to find out the right moment and the process that works for us.

For me, it happened with blogs and social media, and now it evolved to other kinds of platforms with different ways, but the same purposes.

I like to think of myself as a self-taught person in many ways. An autodidact in my arts and life. After all, I do not have any special training in writing, mixed media drawings, crafting, photography, filming, or any of the other things I love to do and keep learning about.

I just had a need, and the will to pursue its basics, in order to learn what I thought I needed at the time.

Hell, sometimes I find myself quite innocently in most worldly subjects and have no other choice but to learn by force. But this is another subject altogether.

We can only see what we see. There are no fast track to encompass all learnings and become wise.

And it’s these things that I incline myself towards that are the most enjoyable to learn, even if they’re not the easiest ones.

I have taught myself how to write all my life. Through books, practicing my craft, online courses, other writers, writing and researching about writing.

I have taught myself how to create and maintain a blog. Even a bit of code, when needed. I have taught myself to grow through all my blogs.

I have taught myself to use design tools and to curate my own content.

I have taught myself how to take photographs for specific purposes. Finding what serves the things I’m interested about, in a non-commercial kind of way. All my content is an expression on myself as an individual.

I have taught myself how to make, and edit videos, how to use different software to support the blog and online presence, social media need-to-knows, and I keep investigating other things.

I find that my writing requires more than just a half a dozen novels, a pile of short-stories or some poetry available in print.

And I am always trying to incorporate value through these other parts of my craft that I came to see as parts of my writing.

Is it perfect? Hell, no! But I show up everyday, determined to learn and to do my best.

This text right here is one more piece of this enormous puzzle. I have been in love with the English language since I learned to read and write. I practiced both Portuguese, through school, and English, by my own will.

I read tons in English and sometimes have trouble in known how to translate words from EN to PT, which usually gets me the evil eye from people around me…

Sometimes I find myself wishing I could write more in my second, that sometimes feels like my first, language. But my blog is mainly in Portuguese safe for a few English articles that I managed to squeeze in now and then.

And I haven’t been able to muster the courage to devote myself to a new blog. One that would have fewer traction and a worldly competition.

And I finally Have sent all those thoughts to hell.

So here I am, in a writer.sarafarinha.com virtual space, hoping to share some of my writing boggles, achievements and challenges and truly hoping to hear some of yours.

And here I am, finishing my first english written book (with 77600 words for now), the first of what I intend to be a trilogy.

Self-taught is the way!

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Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼