Sunday, January 6, 2013

My Voice

I've read a lot of writing advice over the last few years.   Most always say you have to find your writing voice.  This quite frankly was my major hang up.  Hell, it's still my major concern.  What is my voice?  Will people like my voice?  It hit me this morning:  I have a voice and I am not going to change it.  I  quite frankly couldn't even if I really wanted to.

The reality is this.  I found my story voice several years ago.  It just took me until today to embrace it.

Our ship (USS Laboon) pulled into Philadelphia for fleet week one year.  My LPO was supposed to write an article about it for the Navy's magazine.  I remember sitting in my space telling him about what I thought should go into the article and he told me to write it.  I wrote the hell out of that article.  I was very proud of this piece and quite frankly a little perturbed that I wasn't going to get credit when it got published.  I was there when he read it and, sadly, the only thing I took away from it was that I wrote the way I talked.  I took this as a very bad thing.   I am a loud and rapid talker who tends to babble.  I know this about me.

The thing it took me years to realize was this:  he had me write the story because I can tell a story and his comment on my writing style was not necessarily a criticism. 

What made me own my voice?  That's easy.  My mom.  She read my flash fiction piece (read it below) and said that I write the way I talk.  She also said she loved it.  For the last couple days I rationalized.  My mom would like anything I wrote.  She is cool like that.  But, she would tell me if something didn't jive.

I kept playing the "you write the way you talk" and that is awful game ever since.  I woke up today and realized that its my voice and I like it.

Thank you STG1, and sorry for inadvertently making you the demon in my head.

My writing voice: loud, rapid, babbling at times, MINE.

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