How to Find Your Voice as a Writer
And say what you have to say.
I’ve been writing for a living for close to 2 years now. While it often feels like living the dream, it sometimes feels like I’ve completely drained myself and have nothing more to give.
You’ve probably heard that writers are supposed to do just that, bleed on the page. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing.
And in the process of bleeding myself dry, I’ve also discovered something quite wonderful: I’ve found my voice.
I’ve honed in my writing style, and what I have to say, the message I’d like to be known for. I’s been a painful, joyful, wonderful process.
This is how you can find your writing voice, too:
Set your voice free, and forgive it for what it has to say
Sometimes I look back at my writing and realize my voice has perhaps said things out loud I shouldn’t have let it.
That’s too much detail, I think. Too much information that matters the world to me and absolutely nothing to everyone else.
Thoughts flow through my head:
This is too personal.
Who cares?
It adds nothing to the story.
It sounds bitter.
These thoughts set me against my own voice, the spontaneous version of it, the version I have let unbounded, free to tell the stories it feels it needs to tell.
In the process of finding my voice, I had to learn to set itself free, and forgive it for what it has to say. It’s when I let my voice speak freely that I come up with my most authentic work, and when I try to curb or polish what it has to say that I come up with my most uninspired writing.
The more personal, the more readers relate
The more you set your voice free, the more personal your stories will get.
It’s scary at first, to be this vulnerable in front of so many people, but once you do it, you quickly discover the more vulnerable you are, the more readers relate.
There’s no better feeling than receiving feedback on your writing along the lines of “I could see myself in your story. Thank you for telling it.”
Your story and your voice complement each other
What does that even mean?
It means my story so far builds my voice, and my voice shapes the story I’m telling from now on.
I understand my voice as a writer is still developing itself, and that it will undoubtedly change — heck, I’m looking forward to seeing it evolve — but now my voice feeds of my story, it draws from my struggles, and I couldn’t appreciate that more.
My voice will never cease to develop and change.
At least I hope not.
I hope I never cease to grow and develop as a person. I have embraced change as a positive aspect of life a long time ago, and I look forward to seeing it manifest and carry me on. I’d rather keep going than stand still, paralyzed by fear.
My voice isn’t perfect — and I’m sure it will never be. I feel I have as much to learn from it as it has from me.
My voice isn’t exactly me, it’s both part of me and an independent manifestation of my mind that often acts despite myself.
We complement each other, my voice and me. That’s why I have to forgive it for sometimes speaking of things that might not be entirely appropriate, for lacking in style, for not always knowing what to say — and that’s why you have to forgive your voice for saying what it has to say.
Censoring yourself is not how you discover what kind of writer you are. Only by letting your voice say what it feels important to say can you grow in this field.
It takes opening your metaphorical veins and letting them bleed freely on the page.
