Developing your voice as a writer and as a woman

Developing your voice as a writer has just as much to do with your voice in your relationships to others and yourself as it does on paper. How do you want to be perceived as a writer? Even if your goal is to only publish one or a few books, how do you want to be known?

We want to write in a way that doesn’t bore the hell out of our reader. We want them to be engaged in what we have to say and the stories that we are telling. We want them to be emotionally invested and curious as to how they can further connect with us.

Originality is another important aspect. There’s tons of information out there.  For every storyline that we can think of, it’s one already out there. So what makes yours special? It’s how you tell the story. It’s how much of you that you put into it. That You-ness is expressed through vulnerability. It’s telling the whole story.

Then there’s courage. If you notice, all three components relate to the other. In order to engage the reader, you have to be original. In order to be original, you have to be courageous. That doesn’t mean stabbing a Black Power pick into your fro and strapping an AK-47 around your midsection before writing. It means flowing until you get to the parts that makes you nervous, the ones that make you feel something. It’ll even make you doubt whether you should include it or not.

That’s exactly what’s supposed to happen. If you’re feeling it, then your reader is sure as hell going to feel it. When they feel it, then they become emotionally invested and curious as to how they can further connect with you. They want to read your other books, your blogs, and maybe even work with you in some way.

Again, in order for that to happen, you have to consider how you’re showing up in “real life.” What do you consider to be compelling conversation and activities? What’s fun to you? Are you exploring these things? Are you doing them? Does your wardrobe reflect who you are and how you feel that particular day? Are you a code-switcher (speaking one way at work and another at home)?

When you fuse who you are with you do, it’s a beautiful thing. 

I code-switched for a long time. I’ve been working since I was 14 and quit my last place of employment earlier this year, making it about 12 years of code switching. Some have been doing it longer than other, but history isn’t a factor here. You can start whenever you get good and ready. I couldn’t take it no more. When asked for my opinion, I started giving it–exactly as it came to me. I started running my writing workshops as I saw fit and not what I fit the mold. When I did this, the attendance rate (which consisted of voluntary participation, by the way) shot through the fucking roof.

Courage, for me, is having an eff-it attitude. I started speaking up on the job when I adopted this attitude. I was tired being uncomfortable with myself–coming home and thinking back on what I should’ve-could’ve-would’ve said. Even more, failing to speak up for myself was working against me. Everything that I hated about the job was beginning to surround me as if to dare me.

I also experimented with courage off the job, like travelling out of the country by myself. Chopping my perm off and going natural. Getting my nose pierced. Being the only participant married to a man at a three-day lesbian retreat. Dressing in ways that Savannah’s Black crowd ain’t exactly used to. Rearing my children in ways that my family ain’t familiar with.

Begin developing your voice from where you are. 

What can you do right now to develop your voice–to engage yourself, to stand out, or to stand up? Maybe it’s pushing back from the desk to breathe and stretch for a sec. Maybe it’s pulling out a piece of paper and retelling a piece of your past just as it happened with no hold-backs. Starting your locs, going for a run in a sports bra although you have stretch marks, doing yoga naked, saying eff the dishes tonight so that you can write for awhile.

Find out how I’m starting from where I am to further cultivate my writing voice by peeping my latest newsletter.