{"id":850,"date":"2012-01-31T06:00:07","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T12:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=850"},"modified":"2012-01-31T06:00:07","modified_gmt":"2012-01-31T12:00:07","slug":"listening-to-the-sound-of-my-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=850","title":{"rendered":"Listening to the sound of my voice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/paperbacks.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-853\" src=\"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/paperbacks-300x220.png\" alt=\"Paperbacks\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" \/><\/a>When I first started writing, I never intentionally tried to mirror a favorite writer. The problem was that I hadn&#8217;t found my own voice yet. So when I started creating stories, it surprised me when I discovered the stories were not my own.<\/p>\n<p>One of my early attempts was to write a science fiction epic that would have a galactic scale to it. I stopped after a few thousand words when I realized I was retelling Issac Asimov&#8217;s <em>Foundation<\/em> series. As time went on, I discovered an interest in writing stories about a populated Mars, not unlike Ray Bradbury. When I graduated college, it was Stephen King and his epic <em>The Stand<\/em> that I was\u00a0mimicking\u00a0in style &#8212; if not in apocalyptic subject matter.<\/p>\n<p>Through all these phases in my writing, I was equally concerned and confounded by the advice I received to &#8220;find your own voice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>I don&#8217;t have a voice<\/em>, I wanted to argue. <em>I only know how to write like the books I have read.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>After a decade or so of writing, I&#8217;ve discovered my voice has been with me all along. It was my own voice I was drowning out by listening to my favorite authors whispering in my ear.<\/p>\n<p>What I didn&#8217;t understand, what many new writers fail to grasp, is that our favorite writers aren&#8217;t doing anything special in their writing. They aren&#8217;t adopting a &#8220;writer&#8217;s voice&#8221; when they put pen to page. Do you want to know their secret? Lean in close and I&#8217;ll whisper it to you:\u00a0They <strong>talk<\/strong> to you.<\/p>\n<p>Writing can still be difficult. I get off track, I overwrite scenes, and I have a habit of putting on my editor hat when I should be writing. But when I get things right, it&#8217;s because I have stopped trying to write.\u00a0Instead, I talk and let my fingers transcribe what I&#8217;m saying in my head.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the voice I needed to find, and it was inside me all along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I first started writing, I never intentionally tried to mirror a favorite writer. The problem was that I hadn&#8217;t found my own voice yet. So when I started creating stories, it surprised me when I discovered the stories were not my own. One of my early attempts was to write a science fiction epic [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[395,557,904,1056,1226],"class_list":["post-850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-influence","tag-favorite-author","tag-issac-asimov","tag-ray-bradbury","tag-stephen-king","tag-voice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}