Sunday, September 16, 2012

A Writer's Voice



Dear readers,

It’s bright and warm and sunny outside. Inside, well inside of me, it’s pretty cold.
I’m not being depressing, believe me, I just have a cold. 
That’s also why you keep hearing my persistent coughing as I type this.
If you don’t, you need a check up, my dear.
Despite the health upset, my writing has reached an all time high!
I found my voice again.
We’re talking metaphorically, here.
Because physically, I can barely speak.
As I said, I found my voice. 
Last month, I had so many lapses and lulls in my writing that I could barely get a sentence down without the compulsive need to rewind and edit as I went along. Just so you know, that’s a big no-no! It’s extremely hard get anywhere if that’s your method.
I have to say that participating in the Blog Flash 2012 challenge really did help me because it forced me to put something up every day. I didn’t get the time to doubt myself as much as I usually do.  It also helped me get to the reason for why I’d, somehow, forgotten how to write freely.  
 I didn’t know it at the time, but I do now, that I was trying to emulate an author I admire so much, and because of that, I was ignoring what I wanted to say. And, considering that that’s what writing is about, it did really defeat the whole purpose of the entire activity!
(How typical of me)

Source - http://ponti55.deviantart.com/


I scanned back to the recent edits I’d done to my WIP and was a little shocked that I didn’t recognise much of it. Quality-wise, it wasn’t too bad, but a reader would be able to tell it was forced.
Plus, I’d much rather write in my own style, in my voice, than do a bad impression of someone else’s.
So I’m keeping true to myself now.
I’m turning up the music, trying to keep away from random tangents, and as always, looking for underused words to drop into my writing.
And so far, I’ve been rather happy with the results.

Have you ever lost your writer's voice or your literary footing without knowing it, readers?