Your True Voice

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I received a great article from Zen Habits in my inbox over the weekend. It's all about finding your 'Creative Voice'. It is written for writers, but his ideas can be applied to anyone who creates anything.
It really made me stop and think as I have been struggling with my 'bloggy voice' lately. I know that I have tempered it due to inbox comments.


Leo writes: "Creators of any kind must find their voice. We are writers, musicians, designers, programmers, parents, builders of anything. But we are not truly expressing ourselves, and speaking the truth, until we’ve found our voice: the tone, style, tenor, pitch, personality we use to express ourselves. Our voice is our essence, writ plain for the world to see."

He talks about learning to hear yourself and how his writing voice is really the voice in his head. I'd agree with that for my blog voice. It's me, how I talk to myself and really, it's how I talk out loud too! I can really relate to how he describes the creative writing process as "a rewiring of the synapses, so that your head-thoughts shoot down into your fingertips and come out as typing motions, as bits and pixels". It's an amazing process when you stop and think about it. And here I sit at 5.47am, having my thoughts "shoot down into my fingertips" and out to you in the vastness that is the internet!

Via Blinks of Life

I agree that it all boils down to clear thinking. As Leo says, "if your thinking is muddled, your writing will be". He suggests that for good writing you need to remove the noise and that is "a process of subtraction more than addition. Most people end up with too many words, because they never subtract.  After you write, edit and remove the noise". He writes: 

"Most people also have too much noise in their lives to hear their own thinking. Too much is going on around them, and online, and they have no time for solitude. You can’t hear your thoughts, your voice, without solitude. Remove the noise in your life as well."

I think that's what I am up to at the moment...removing the noise, simplifying my life and my thoughts... and through that process, finding my bloggy voice again. As Leo says, "it's not a quest but a constant retuning, as the essence of who you are never changes".

Via Blinks Of Life

Do you feel that you have a strong bloggy/writing voice or do you, like me at times, struggle to find your voice or temper it at times?

Full article HERE.