Finding your voice
Why is it so hard to share your words and thoughts with the world?
Finding your voice
"You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, ‘This is me, this what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I’m doing the best I can – buy me or not – but this is who I am as a writer.”
David Morrell
Finding your voice. File under sounds easy, but blimmin' hard to do which is precisely why I loved this quote from this morning's Writers Hour . I just wish there was a simple formula I could give you, but the reality is a little more complex.
I guess it goes to the heart of why I love doing this job though because it can be incredibly difficult - as odd as it might sound - to write freely, comfortably, confidently and with ease in your own voice. I mean it's your voice, you use it daily don't you? So why is it so hard to take that voice and share your words and thoughts with the world?
I don't know if you've experienced the same, but I can walk on the moor, do the washing up, queue at Tescos all while constructing sentences and phrases in my head that feel truly like me, but something happens when I start writing and typing and see those thoughts staring back at me in black and white. I lose confidence, I doubt myself or the moment vanishes. Sound familiar?
I guess what immediately springs to mind is this:
Start. Share something and often the writing you spend the least time tidying and polishing is the one that lands with people, because it feels real and authentic.
Keep going. Keep exercising your voice because it isn't static, it flexes and moves with you and this gives it texture and colour. It's what makes you interesting and people wanting to come back to you.
It's why having people around you to encourage and help you to find the right words for you can be so invaluable. Without exception, everyone I write for is articulate. They're already great writers, they have all the words and thoughts. It's just that sometimes we need someone to sit next to us and gently but firmly nudge us forward and help us to build the confidence to say,