In the lead-up to last weekend’s Virtual Writing Retreat for Entrepreneurs (which went swimmingly, by the way!), I asked participants to tell me about their writing struggles.
Voice was one of the subjects that came up the most.
These entrepreneurs found it elusive, evasive, perplexing. They wanted to know how to find it. They wanted to make it stronger, louder, better.
Great questions, but not necessarily questions I had immediate or simple answers to.
Yet the more I thought about it, and the more I learned from the challenges and epiphanies of the 300+ retreat participants…the clearer it became.
Voice is confidence
Voice is borne of the confidence to say what you mean. To include the frank realizations, astute observations and embarrassing moments. To be direct if you’re feeling direct. To free-flow if you want to.
Voice is the confidence to write as YOU.
To pursue the topics that light you up.
To write without editing…the first time through.
To hear the voice in your head, and take her seriously.
Voice is what happens when you’ve learned enough about writing to know you’ve got this.
If you try to write with a critical little gremlin peering over your shoulder, pointing out every flaw and making you doubt that you have what it takes…it will be difficult to relax into your true thoughts, feelings and opinions.
Buh-bye, writing gremlin.
Voice is auditory
A lot of people enjoyed this Robert Frost quote I shared during the retreat:
“The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.”
There’s a reason it’s called voice, and that’s because it’s auditory. Great writing feels intimate, as if the writer is a friend sitting on your living room couch, telling you a story. You can hear your friend’s voice in your head, ringing true and clear.
To work on voice, read your writing aloud. You’ll start to see where it flows, and where it thuds.
If it’s easy on the ear, it will also be easy on the eyes.
You can also try dictation. If speech comes more easily for you, or if you generally have clarity until the very moment you sit down to write, try recording audio notes on your phone or entire speeches or stories that can later be transcribed.
Voice takes commitment
Voice is about reading, and writing. Read writers you love. Figure out why you love them.
Read often.
Read immediately before you write.
Write regularly, and don’t give up when you start to think your writing is crap. Instead, take a break. Go for a walk. Hug your kid. Read something different—a comic book, or a maybe a poem.
And remember that everyone who creates goes through this phase. It’s going to take a while. It’s supposed to.