Back in the early to mid 2000's, when I was a college student, a couple of my English professors told me that I had a very distinct "voice" in my writing. Voice of course, is, at it's most basic level, your own personality--or, if you believe in such things, your very soul, coming through the words you write on a blank page.
I suppose everyone would have his or her own interpretation of voice, perhaps.
What is my "voice?" Not a clue.
Perhaps at times, it's a bit formal and pretentious? Perhaps even sounding a tad pastoral, at times. That may come from the fact that, as a teen, I had been given that multi-volume set of British Poets from the early 1800's, and reading Emerson's "Essays," I don't know. These works did have a profound influence on me, in my teens and early 20's.
I'd found a school book from the early 1800's as well, that was full of beautiful writings; not just Goldsmith, Addison, etc., but simple writings from unknown authors...this book held lessons in morals, but, the language used, was amazing! Poetry and short essays--even historical lessons, whose words flowed and twirled off my tongue, oh, it was...amazing. I wanted to write like that! I wanted to use the blank page and a pen as my canvas to paint a portrait of words. I was utterly enchanted.
Mother nature, being outdoors in the woods and fields around my home, walking besides streams and exploring deep and dark ravines, certainly contributed to how I write. Being out there, in the stillness and gentleness of nature, taught me to observe, to think, to open my mind and my heart to the world around me, to let it inside me for a wee while--and sometimes, those little moments have stayed with me forever.
At dusk, lying back on the grass of Cemetery Hill, watching the sunset over the low hills of the Upper Hudson Valley, listening to the ever-changing music of a mockingbird, I was absorbing the world around me, and the poetry of the living world, became the poetry of my heart and mind.
It's not always easy for me to write what I'm feeling tho'. I struggle to hold on to a moment, a feeling...finding exactly the right word, the right flow, to paint my pictures. Sometimes it's there, sometimes...not. I remember reading a quote by Gustave Flaubert: "I am like a violinist whoese ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within" (his mind).
Sometimes I felt that my voice was outdated. I was told several times in school that my writing was too "old-fashioned" for the contemporary world. So, I had to learn to find some sort of compromise, continually, through trial and error (thank goodness for those red pen corrections), to re-create myself.
I think, for every writer--well, for many, at least--that one's voice is never etched in stone. I'd like to think writing is like a continual experiment. Actually, I fought changing my style, my voice. Changing how I wrote, felt to me, like I was being asked to change my identity. I feared losing the "me" in my writing. But then I learned to give and take a little, and I think it only helped to improve my writing.
The one downfall of this, however, was that it took some of the "fun" out of writing. I mean, that I had to work a whole lot harder at writing, when I had to change how I wrote to suit the "norm." I really, really didn't want to bend, truth to tell. And, I didn't, not totally. Eventually I found a sort of balance.
Honestly, I don't know if learning "how" to write (sort of) made me a better writer, or worse. I did learn (sort of) the value of brevity over being long-winded. I do tend to be very long-winded, in my writing.
In this day and age of "I don't want it now, I want it yesterday, and I want it to be easy enough not to require much effort on my part," it's not a friendly world for the long-winded writer. Modern people hate long paragraphs, or flowery writing. They want you to get to the point, they want to be entertained on every page.
Well, maybe that's too cynical, but that's how I feel sometimes. Especially when I pick up a book from 200 years ago--or even 100 years ago, and see the football field long difference between writing today, and writing in our past. It makes me sad, sometimes.
In the last few years, I feel especially sad. I don't feel like my old self much any longer, when I write. I feel like I'm losing myself, like I'm getting out of practice. I get no truly constructive feedback on my writing--not from knowlegedable people.
When I first began posting fan fiction, a lot of the feedback I got was from snarky people who seemed more likely that they had their heads up their bottom's, then had a basic grasp of proper writing. Like the twit that snarkily scolded me for beginning a paragraph with a quote. What a load of poo! Obviously that particular twit has never actually read a modern novel. (I was just reading a book that often began sentences with quotes, and obviously, if this is an author of more than one published book, it's OK to start a paragraph with a quote.) Duh.
I was very fortunate to have had a few professors whom guided my writing carefully along, correcting where it was needed, telling me when I was doing something right and wrong non-judgementally, and with genuine caring for how I developed. Gosh, I really do miss that, more than you could ever know. I don't guess I'll ever have that again. I've been left to my own devices now, and gosh, don't sometimes I feel like I've been thrown to the wolves, or am at sea, and floudering in the towering waves.
Sometimes--well, a lot of times, writing feels a hell of a lot like work. But then, there's times when magic happens; when I'd get a spark, and my pen would seem to float across the page like it had a mind of its own. When my words feel right and nearly perfect--if anything is ever truly perfect--sometimes it seemed, and seems still, that someone else is holding the pen or typing the keys. I look at what I wrote, and say, "Wow! Did I just write THAT?" I am chuffed when that happens...but alas, it is all too rare, I'm afraid.
