Finding Your Voice

     

       If you want to be a writer, you cannot simply read. You need to return to what you've read and think about and reflect on that reading, because it is only through the process of reflecting that we can truly discover our writer's voice.

      We discover that if we write enough, our writing takes on a unique personality. Sometimes that personality reflects who we are in our public lives. Sometimes it is a very different voice. Sometimes our writing voice explores that part of us that our friends rarely see. I know that this is true with me.

       For most of my writing life, (which started my junior year in high school) I kept my writing mostly to myself—different entirely from the more public writing we do in our blogs. After I published my first book of poetry, even my closest friends seemed surprised that I wrote as much poetry as I did; but, I know that when I started to prepare my poems for publication, I also prepared for them to be "public," and it did affect and shape the way I wrote when I realized there were real people that wanted to read what I wrote. It both energized and scared me.

      In my early days U-mass (my father always said, "U-Mass or U-Pay) I wanted to write, but I hit a classic writer's block. I lost my confidence. I had never written "for" other people. It was my private little world, and I wasn't sure what part of it—if any—that I wanted to share. I kept imagining people's reaction to my writing. I no longer wrote for the sheer joy of writing. It wasn't until I joined a creative writing class that I was freed from my fear. And all it took was a few of my classmates saying, "Hey, that was a great poem you read in class," or someone else saying, "You put words into something I feel everyday." In short, I realized that I was part of a greater community of people trying to find beauty, meaning and purpose in life through words: through poems, songs, stories, ramblings, histories, novels, essays, and every other way that words are put to print. 

      I also realized that I had—and still have—a lot to learn. Writers learn by reading and readers learn by writing. It is almost as if one can't exist without the other. This is probably why I push you guys as hard as I do with reading and writing—because I know there is no cheap and easy way to develop the gift of being a true reader and meaningful and adept writer. It's why I want you to write from the heart with the skill of a craftsman. I don't want to only teach you to recognize words, write sentences, and organize essays. I want you to experience the joy of being a true writer. I want you to get to the place I can only point to. I never sit around and scheme up ways to just keep you busy. I sit and think; I walk and reflect; I try to help you find what you already have.

It's an imperfect art. Just don’t give up.