Develop Your Writer's Voice

Writers are often advised to develop their voice, their own unique imprint as an artist. But what exactly is a writer's voice and how do you develop it? Developing your voice as a writer means discovering your own personal style that is distinguishable from other writers. If you think about the writers whose work you enjoy, each one has a unique voice that you recognize almost immediately when you hear or see some of their work. A writer's voice involves tone, perspective, cadence, rhythm, slang, dialect, speech patterns, etc. that are unique to that writer. These are the distinctive qualities that reflect you as a person and make your writing style yours alone. The more in tune you are with these nuances of your personal style, the more that style will be reflected in your writing. Style is something that can't be forced. It must come naturally. So, when you're writing, think about how you talk, how you express yourself, what your particular slant on life is, and be aware of how this can be expressed in your writing. Probably the best way to develop your writer's voice is to write about what you care deeply about. When you're writing about your passions and commitments, your natural voice comes through because it's being carried by your emotions. You don't have to think about style. It just pours out of you with fluidity and candor. This is the type of writing that best defines you and makes you an original writer that readers will both recognize and be inspired by.

Think Before Writing

American journalist Christopher Morley once said: "The problem is to teach ourselves to think, and the writing will take care of itself." There are two important types of thinking that writers can utilize to enhance their writing skills. These types of thinking are especially useful in developing and refining ideas or topics to write about. Creativity experts define creativity as the production of something original and useful which, they say, is achieved through a combination of divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking involves generating many unique ideas as a starting point in the process. This type of thinking has also been referred to as brainstorming. It involves using free association to spin as many ideas off of an original idea as possible without any restraints or parameters. It is a kind of warm-up exercise for the brain. Convergent thinking comes next. After the generation of as many ideas as possible, convergent thinking involves focusing in and combining these ideas into the best result. Both are necessary to develop useful, refined writing. Employing a process such as this will result in ideas or topics that are thought out in advance and have the best chances of resulting in successful writing. It is tempting to jump into writing projects without doing the necessary thinking work first. Train yourself to think first and write second. The results will make your writing shine.

Speak Your Writing

Language was originally in oral form. It was spoken and heard, not written and seen. Even today, spoken language is more powerful than its written counterpart. Spoken language sounds different than written language. It connects more directly with our emotions, and it is often easier to digest than written language. So it is important, as writers, that we stay connected to the spoken form of our writing. When editing your work, don't rely solely on a silent reading of it. Reading silently can lull you into thinking your writing needs little or no revision because you are experiencing your writing passively. Reading your work aloud, however, jolts you and wakes you up because it is an active experience of your writing. When you read your work aloud, you hear things that you don't notice with a silent reading. Everything leaps out at you when you read aloud - awkward wording, phrases that don't sound right, nonsensical wording, awkward transitions, choppy writing, style inconsistencies, etc. These are all things that a silent reading of your work may gloss over because the reading mind tends to skim or glide over words and groups of words. The speaking mind, however, lingers over and pronounces each individual word, causing it to notice the sound and detail of each one. So, when you're editing your work, use a combination of silent review and reading aloud to gain the best perspective you can and make the most of your revision process.

Set Writing Goals

Writers need to set goals just like everyone else. Goals are the framework around which you will build your craft. But it is important to know what kind of goals to set. Beginning writers often set lofty, generalized goals (i.e., I want to write a bestselling novel). While this is an admirable goal, it is not an immediately achievable one and can easily lead to frustration, disappointment and a sense of futility. This happens because the goal is too overwhelming and sets you up to face insurmountable odds and likely failure. What you need are smaller, more specific, achievable goals (i.e., I will write an outline of my novel idea or I will write a sketch of the main character of my novel). These smaller goals, once achieved, become the building blocks for your larger goal of a published, successful novel. Smaller goals allow you to achieve gradually and to build confidence in your writing. They keep you focused on the work at hand, the process of writing, so that you're not distracted or overwhelmed by a larger goal. If you work steadily at these smaller goals, you will eventually have your finished novel or short story or essay. Because you have taken the time to build your writing project one small block at a time, you will have a finished work that is polished, structurally sound, and one that you can be proud of. So, dream big, but work small.

Writing Anywhere, Anytime

A skill that is important for writers to cultivate is the ability to write anywhere, anytime. Often writers feel conditions have to be perfect for them to write. The stars must be aligned. The muse must be calling. It must be perfectly still. They must be perfectly comfortable, and they must be inspired. As a result, these writers often get little or no writing done because it's impossible to achieve such conditions of perfection. Life is full of distractions and imperfect conditions; and if you let them detour you from your goals, you will never be a productive writer. It is important to simplify the writing process so that you don't have to have your computer in front of you to write. Work on being able to write with just pencil and paper. Learn to write on your lap instead of on a desk, to write on the go instead of being stationary, to write in little segments of free time instead of long blocks of it. Make your craft mobile and flexible so that you can do it anywhere or anytime the opportunity presents itself. This will allow writing to be integrated into your daily life instead of being a separate formal activity you do only in certain places at certain times. Writing in this stream-of-consciousness manner will enable you to write in a more focused way because you are teaching yourself to regularly tune out the world and tune into your writing. It also allows you to capture those spontaneous bursts of creativity as they occur instead of waiting for a more ideal time when the thought and the inspiration may be lost. Instead of trying to set aside time to write, try making writing a natural part of your daily life, and reap the rewards of more creative and productive work.

Tactile Writing

In this age of technology, writers have to be careful not to become too dependent on computers. While computerization has made a writer's work easier and faster in a myriad of ways, it has also changed the nature of writing and our relationship to the written word. Prior to the computer age, writing was a very tactile experience. It was the scratching of pen on paper or the clacking of typewriter keys punctuated by the rhythmic clunking of the typewriter return. Writers were connected to their writing in very sensual ways. What the computer has ushered in is a disconnect from this tactile orientation to a mostly visual one. On a computer screen, our writing automatically "looks" better and therefore seems better than when it is scribbled on a sheet of paper. As a result, we often have an illusion that our work is more polished than it really is. When typing on a computer, our mind works differently than it does when applying lead or ink to paper. Different neurons fire and thought is processed in different ways. I encourage my writing students to regularly produce handwritten work so they don't lose that vital connection from mind to hand to paper, because it is profoundly different than the connection from mind to keyboard to screen. By all means, utilize all the benefits that technology brings to the writing process, but don't lose touch with tactile writing. The quality of your writing will be greatly enhanced by the sensual experience of handwritten work and you will find greater enjoyment in the writing craft.

Failing to Succeed

Like most pursuits, writers must take the bad with the good. While the ultimate goal is good writing, there needs to be room for some bad writing along the way. A mistake some writers make is trying to be perfect. These writers may say: "If I can't write well, I don't want to write at all." The problem with this view is that it's not realistic. Even the most accomplished writers occasionally write badly. It's part of the writing process and it's part of being human. The quest for perfection often leads to paralysis. To achieve perfection is such a daunting goal that writers can become frozen in the face of such overwhelming odds and end up writing nothing at all. To not allow yourself to write badly or make mistakes is to deny yourself the opportunity to experiment and grow as a writer. The paradox is that, in order to write well, you must give yourself permission to write badly. If you never write anything because it might turn out badly, you won't have anything to work on, to refine, to learn from. All you will have is your fear. At least having some bad writing to your credit is better than having no writing to your credit at all. It is through the failures and mistakes of our writing that we're able to learn and develop as writers and ultimately experience success. It is not possible to have writing success without first experiencing many failures. Welcome your failures, learn from them, and pave your way to well-earned writing success.

Finish Your Work

Starting writing projects is easy. Finishing them is the hard part. A common problem many writers face is working on multiple projects simultaneously but not being able to complete any of them. These writers tend to flit from project to project, working on each one a little bit at a time, but never delving deeply into any single one. When the writing becomes difficult on a particular project or the work becomes stalemated, they switch to another project for which the writing is easier. The hard work is staying with a particular writing project even when you become blocked and working through the rough spots until it becomes easier again. Abandoning your work when it gets difficult often results in the work never reaching completion. It also robs you of an opportunity to grow as a writer, learning to persist even when it seems hopeless and trusting that the writing process will see you through the difficulties. This persistence will pay big rewards in completed work and the satisfaction of having stayed with it when it would have been easier to walk away. Working on multiple projects is fine as long as the multi-tasking doesn't get in the way of finishing your work. An idea may be beautifully conceived, but until it's fully executed into a completed work, it's just an idea. Finished work is what defines you as a writer and keeps you growing as an artist.

Generating Ideas

Generating ideas for writing projects can, at times, be a writer's toughest challenge. Sometimes ideas appear on their own, emerging from a subconscious level and presenting themselves in ready-to-go form. Sometimes a vague notion of an idea hovers near the conscious level, but it is not yet a fully developed idea. More commonly, however, writers are simply stumped regarding what to write about. Beginning writers will often say: "I want to write, but I don't have anything to write about." How do you come up with ideas when the blank page is staring you in the face? There are many techniques writers use to generate ideas and it's just a matter of discovering which techniques work for you. Listing ideas through free association is one technique. This can be done by either listing words or ideas in a linear fashion or by making a drawing that links ideas together with lines or arrows, much like the spokes on a wheel. Drawing works well for people who are visually-spatially oriented. Another technique is closing your eyes and putting a finger on two words in a book or magazine (i.e., justify and humor) and then developing a concept or story from those two words. A variation of this technique is pairing two odd things that don't normally go together (i.e., fence and socks) and developing an idea from them. Another technique is to put yourself in a new environment or engage in a new activity, pay attention to the sights, sounds and senses you experience, and write about them. There are numerous ways to get your creative neurons firing. Using these types of techniques regularly will keep you supplied with ideas and with the motivation necessary to continually grow your writing repertoire.

Reduce Writing Stress

Trying to complete a writing project can be stressful, especially if there's a deadline or if the project is particularly difficult or new territory for you. Learning how to handle writing stress is critical to your success as a writer. Letting stress get out of hand can be a huge distraction in the writing process and can even stop your writing cold in its tracks. It is always important, when writing, to keep your eye on the goal, but it is especially important when the writing itself becomes stressful. Keeping your goal in mind and repeating it to yourself (i.e., finishing a chapter or report or poem) can actually lessen your stress because it keeps you focused on something positive (the goal) and distracts you from the negative (the stress of the process). There are also other ways to tackle writing stress. You can feed yourself positive affirmations (i.e., I can and I will complete this project). These affirmations re-track your thought processes from "I can't" to "I can." You can also adjust your thoughts when you hit a stress wall. Allow yourself to acknowledge that the stress you're feeling will pass. It's a rough spot, but it need not derail you. You can learn to go with the flow of writing by reminding yourself up front that your writing project will have ups and downs and, in fact, even expect the down times. Incorporate them into your mindset as just part of the writer's territory. Getting a handle on stress will keep you writing past those blocks and fears that crop up and keep you actively engaged in the writing process no matter what else is going on.

Freewriting

Too often writers focus entirely on the goals of their writing projects and forget about the process of writing. The drive to finish that story or chapter or report are so strong that writers are in automatic pilot and missing out on the "experience" of writing. There is much to be learned and enjoyed by focusing on the process of writing instead of the goals. The process is where the true art resides, so to move it to the background is to miss out on the most rewarding aspects of writing. To help you stay in touch with the process, work intermittently on writing that has no goal other than to write. In other words, you are just exercising your writing muscle for the pure purpose of enjoying the act of writing. The best way to do this is freewriting. This is a technique often used by writers to warm up before beginning a writing project or to regain momentum during a block or stalemate in the middle of a writing project. It involves setting a timer or using a watch or clock to track the time and simply writing about whatever comes to your mind for a specified period of time. The trick to freewriting is to not let the editing part of your brain kick into gear. Your task is to write non-stop, using free association of ideas, until the time is up. You will find that this periodic exercising will not only keep your writing skills in good shape, but it will also help you stay attuned to the many nuances of the writing process that make it such a rewarding endeavor.

Persistence Pays

The most important tool an emerging writer can cultivate is persistence. Too many writers give up too quickly. They let struggles such as writing blocks and rejections stop their forward momentum. Some writers quit just as they are about to experience some success. Many writers never get the journey started, being so afraid of failure that they don't even take those first important steps. It is absolutely critical to your writing life that you persist in spite of the frustrations and failures, in spite of the odds, and never stop in your tracks. You must learn to look at these setbacks as part of the natural progression of your writing career, know that they are normal, and trust that you will get beyond them. Your setbacks as a writer, particularly rejections, need to be kept in perspective. They are rejections of pieces of your writing but not of your writing as a whole and certainly not of you as a writer. Rejections are a bump in the road, not a head-on collision. Remember that many fine works were rejected multiple times before being published. The difference is that the writers didn't give up. They persisted in spite of what seemed to be overwhelming odds, kept believing in their work, and eventually found the path to publishing success. Persist with your writing, even when there seems to be no reason to, keep your momentum going, and never stop believing in yourself and your writing. You will find that your persistence pays the sweet rewards of a lasting and successful writing career.