Finding a Blogging Voice

"The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can."

Neil Gaiman

I've been reading a fair number of books about writing recently and they all mention the importance of developing one's VOICE.  Entire books have been written about this and the advice ranges from the absurd to the awesome.

What's this voice that I'm supposed to be developing?  Its a way of expressing oneself in both a unique and authentic way, one of the most potent tools of any writer.

My experiences as a writer of things besides blogs suggest that this is all true. I have developed two main writing voices: the historian and the journal writer.

When I started writing as a historian, I didn't write like a historian because I didn't feel like a historian.  I didn't think that I knew enough history to write as a historian or write well enough to be one.  As I've grown as a historian, so has my comfort with thinking and writing like a historian.  My historian voice has grown as well.  Its somewhere between accessible and academic and above all, aims for clarity.  Its a very neutral voice, but I think its a pretty fine historian voice, if I don't mind saying.

I also have a very personal journal-writing voice.  Its very different from my historian voice. Its not super sophisticated, but nor is it meaningless drivel either.  My journal voice aims to give expression to wordless emotions, which is no easy task.  Nevertheless, its a voice that feels familiar to me, like putting on my favorite sweater.

What I realized over the weekend was that I do not in any way have a blogging voice.  I'm not comfortable blogging yet--what does it mean to have a blog?  What am I supposed to be saying?  How am I supposed to be saying it?  I don't know the answers to any of these questions yet, so I my blogging voice isn't consistent yet, nor does it feel like mine.  It feels a bit like wearing a costume.

Ditto with my novel writing voice.  The novel is my second project and although I can't devote a ton of time to it right now [the dissertation deadline is getting in my way], I like to work on it when I have a little bit of spare time.  But I'm always a little bit unsure of how to proceed.  I haven't yet found my novel-writing voice either.

I'm thinking about how to develop my underdeveloped novel and blogging voices.  Of greatest importance, of course, is to write more and get really comfortable with the format and to imagine myself as a blogger and an novelist, in addition to a historian and journal writer.

Ultimately, developing a voice is about being brave enough to show my real writing self to the world, not a version of myself that I think people would want to read.  Its a little scary and makes me feel a bit vulnerable, this whole "finding your voice" thing.  its about translating my authentic self into the written word and being real with readers.  I'm worried about sounding like I'm trying to imitate other people and also worried that I won't be able to identity my actual voice when I do manage to find it or that it will be wildly inconsistent.  Or even worse, what if readers don't like my actual voice?  Its easier to hide behind my professional historian voice or the safety of my journal writing voice than it is to show myself to the world and try to develop an authentic and real blogging writing voice.

What's the moment in which I'm going to start feeling like a blog writer? Or a novelist? That's the moment in which I'm going to know that I've found my voice.  

In the meantime, the only thing to do to start feeling like a blog writer is to blog more.  Here's hoping that the elusive voice comes around sooner rather than later.

Writing Time: Quality and Quantity

 “Concentration is the secret of strength.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

I always like to think that there's some magical thing that I'll stumble on someday that will make writing as effortless as breathing.  Maybe I'll stumble onto a magical pill or a certain smartphone app that will solve the difficulty of the creative process and my productivity will shoot through the roof!

I regret to report that I've tried all kinds of productivity tips and tricks to crank out more writing, but the only one that really works is this:

Write.

This is not to say that smartphone gizmos and massively complex productivity methods can't enhance writing productivity.  They can and often do. Fr'instance, in recent years, the Pomodoro method has taken off in popularity, promoting short twenty-five minute bursts of productivity interspersed with short breaks.  There are entire apps and websites devoted to this method (I still can't figure out why not just use a kitchen timer?) and a fair number of people swear by it.  I think its probably good for getting non-writing tasks done, but for writing, there's no way that I can even get warmed up in twenty-five minutes.  

What I have found that works for writing is time tracking, as in timing the actual amount of time spent writing, as opposed to using a souped-up stopwatch countdown.  Before I started tracking my writing time, I thought that I wrote for hours upon hours a day and couldn't understand why I had so precious little to show for it.  When I started actually tracking my work time, I realized that I was spending way less time writing than I thought.  Tracking my work time lets me see how much I work as opposed to how much I think I work.  Plus, its nice to see that I'm accomplishing things. I shoot now for four hours a day, broken up into hour long stretches.  An hour gives me enough time to warm up, get focused, and produce decent writing.  Four hours of intensive writing is hard, but its doable.  What really matters is that this structure helps me get stuff done, rather than dinking around (my mother's words) and just thinking that I'm getting things done.

Quality of writing time is just as important as quantity.  The easiest way to get work done is to work during the time when I say that's what I'll be doing.  So, for my hour long stretches, all I do is write.  No Facebook, no phone, no distractions.  Just me, a glass of iced coffee, some piano music, and my writing.  When I'm truly focused, I can accomplish in an hour what takes me three hours to accomplish in a distracted state.  Single tasking is the new multi-tasking.

One last tip: dissertation writers are particularly prone to thinking that writing and research are the same activity.  As in, "Oh, I just need to research XYZ to be able to write this next paragraph!" and suddenly, you (by which I mean me) have fallen down the rabbit hole of research and you (me) suddenly find that you've invested (read: squandered) five hours watching kitten videos or trying to find the end of the internet.

STOP.

Research and writing aren't the same thing.  Everyone likes researching.  Its fun and feels like finding buried treasure.  Everyone hates writing because its hard, lonely, isolating, frustrating, and difficult.  Do not avoid writing by making excuses about how you (I) have to do just a little more research.  You don't.  What you need to do is write.  When the researching urge strikes, put the item on your to do list and keep writing.  When you're done writing, then you just have a nice, neat to-do list.

In other inventive strategies, I've seen a fair number of people using the hashtag #writingpact on Twitter, in which writers publicly commit themselves to writing [insert project here] on a particular day.  I haven't tried it yet, but judging from the number of posts, its working for a fair number of people

There's a tropical storm passing over the region where I live right now and its supposed to rain all week.  The silver lining, I suppose, is that it means more writing time! 

Building a Writing Practice

“Why do you come to sit meditation? Why don’t you make writing your practice? If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you everyplace.”

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

Everyone I know is writing a book, including me.  There's something highly satisfying about telling people, "Oh, yes, I'm writing a book about blah blah blah..." Sometimes I even explain what I'm writing and try to make the process of book writing seem exciting.  It makes the otherwise tedious process sound glamorous, like I'm a real author.  Being an author and recording a story and new things about the world understanding new things about the world is powerful and seductive.  People want to tell their stories.

On the other hand, I know very few people who are actually writing these books that everyone claims to be writing. Everyone says that they'll start writing when they're "less busy."  That day never seems to come. Writing takes time, effort, and persistence. Being an author sounds glamorous.  Being a writer, however, sounds lonely and difficult. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Writing isn't an instantly gratifying process.  Writing is not something that occupies the space of an afternoon.  Its not even a weekend project.  Depending on the size of the piece, it might not even be a year long project.  Or a two year long project.  Its hard to feel enthusiastic about something that doesn't carry with it the promise of immediate gratification.

So what's the trick to persevering though a writing project?  Building a writing practice.

Natalie Goldberg writes about this in Writing Down the Bones.  She likens creating a writing practice to having a spiritual practice and emphasizes the importance of writing consistently. 

Sounds great and exciting and very grown up! A writing practice! But how does one build a writing practice? 

I believe that a writing practice is as unique and as individual as the writer. [Some people even advocate not writing every day.  Whatever works!] I've finally developed a practice that works for me.  

A writing practice has to become a habit.  Not just something that you do every now and then when you remember the book you're supposed to be writing, but something that you do every single day.  Day in and day out.  

I put writing on my schedule.

I begin with gratitude.  I give thanks to the universe every morning that I wake up.  I'm particularly grateful for being given yet another day in which I get to write.  Consistently giving gratitude reminds me that having time to write is a blessing.

After giving thanks for the opportunity to write, I meditate.  Meditation is a practice I've developed much in the same way that I've developed a writing practice and often times, they are indistinguishable from each other.  I'm not one of those people who has the time and patience to meditate for an hour a day.  I shoot for twenty minutes of deeply focused mindful meditation.  I will never be any kind of zen master, but meditation has become the place where I can quietly listen to my heart.  Meditating regularly also significantly increased my focus for actual writing.  One writer I know practices yoga daily for this same reason.

When I'm done meditating, I sit to write.  lts starting to feel much like a meditation practice. Like my meditation practice, it does me no good to do it every once in a while when I remember to do it.  I don't always want to write.  Sometimes I positively do not want to write.  There are plenty of days that I feel too sad to write. As I've learned in meditation, I notice my resistance to writing and let it go. But I sit down and give more thanks for the outcome of my daily writing. I'll often start with my journal and just write anything that comes to mind.  It doesn't seem to matter so much what I say, but rather that I say something.

And then I start.  I write for a few hours every day and stop at the time that I've scheduled. Sometimes it seems like enough, sometimes like too much, and sometimes like too little. The important thing, as always, is to just do it.  When I'm done writing, I give more thanks for another day of writing.

Here's the hard part: doing the whole thing again the next day.  Its like exercise or eating vegetables--I do it because I know that the long term outcome is good for me.

If my writing practice seems heavy vague notions of spirituality on the gratitude, this is by design.  Giving thanks and gratitude for writing turn it into less of a chore and more of a privilege.

I'd like to keep modifying an improving my writing practice and making writing more personal, more meaningful, and more spiritual every time I do it. What else could be included in a writing practice?

In News That Surprises No One, Neil Gaiman Gives Great Writing Advice

Neil Gaiman gives great advice here about the writing process: get the story out, keep going, fix it later, and work on your own voice!

Hello and welcome!

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”

—Anne Lamott

I'm a writer.  I've known it in my bones since I was small.  I've written on paper bags and the back of airline boarding passes when I don't have anywhere else to write. I've kept my writing personal and private for years, but I think I'm ready to start sharing with a bigger audience.  I write to not only make sense of the world around me, but also to make sense of myself.

I'm interested in writing in all forms--from inspirational novels and personal journals to boring research articles and swanky wine labels.  I'm working on both a dissertation and a novel, as well as continuing to document my personal journey through life using a fountain pen and analog paper.

I'm hoping to use this space to share bits and pieces of my own writing, but also offer thoughts on the purpose and meaning of writing.  [Why do we write?  What do we gain? What's the point in persevering through the writing process when there are so many other things that are more fun to do?] In addition, I'm planning to write a little bit about the actual writing process, coping with writer's block, thinking about why copy editing is so difficult, and to ponder whether handwriting is really dead. 

Writing is hard.  Writing on a regular basis is even harder. I'm hoping that this blog brings people things to think about, as well keeps me accountable and writing regularly. I'm also hoping that blogging turns out to be an experience that helps me grow as both a person and as a writer. I'd love to connect with anyone engaged in the process of writing and hear thoughts about both the technical and poetic aspects of writing.