Sorry, I Lost My Voice

Having a voice as a writer is a peculiar thing, at least to me. In fact, the whole spectrum of being a writer is a bit odd, probably because it’s so complex. For example, I’m a business writer by trade–something I’ve been doing for 16+ years. One might say I’m “seasoned.”

On the other hand, I’m an aspiring author who’s been working on her book for a solid six years now, along with some fictional short stories along the way. Here, I’m just a baby, a total n00b. It’s counterintuitive to me that I could be a beginner in one sense and a pro in another. I mean, we’re talking about the same thing, right? Yes and no.

Writing—and being a writer—can be sliced and diced many different ways, and I’ve described two of them above. There’s fiction and non-fiction and creative non-fiction and technical writing and wow, there are so many ways to be a writer. Of course you can be well-versed in some and totally unaware of others! There’s a lot of ground to cover, a lot of ground to explore.

It’s paradoxical and jarring. It also makes things interesting when I have to disassociate from one voice to step into another.

Ah, yes, voice. I feel as though my voice has changed so much over the years, at least in the creative writing sense. I’ve launched (and then grounded) several blogs over the past 16 years. My first blog ever, Mutually Compatible Baggage, was a smorgasbord of sass, SaaS, and drinking. As a young 20-something, wry writ was everything. Feeling sad? Squash that shit down; no one wants to hear it! Dance, monkey! Type your little keys and make the people laugh! Of course, much of that stemmed from my record-breakingly low self-esteem, but for a long while, that was my voice.

Then there was So I Found Out, where I retained the sass but ditched the debauchery in pursuit of a more tempered tone, though I still glorified irreverence from time to time. This was an in-between era for me—a rediscovering of myself and with her, my voice. It was choppy and clunky, but a lot more honest and a little less biting.

And not terribly long ago, I launched Lie Awake, where I attempted to breathe life into what I called my “brain babies.” This was a much more reflective voice where nuance and emotion were celebrated and I delved into much more personal experiences. Looking back, it was an experiment of sorts. I hiked up my emotional skirt to gauge people’s reactions. Not the healthiest impetus for progressing in writing, but forward movement nonetheless.

Today, I’m reaching for more emotion, more undertones, more depth. Diving deeper. That’s where the growth happens. It also happens to be the scariest part.

The deep, dark unknown-–that is where you have to get vulnerable. As a writer, you’ve entered into a social contract with your readers where you agree to peel back the layers of the onion in real time, holding back nothing, baring all. Your naked soul is exposed, a target for admiration, connection, or denigration.

It’s scary down there, and many of us will never make it down as far as we can go, either because we didn’t have the right equipment or the right instructors, or because we didn’t connect with the right people, those gentle souls that are willing to buddy breath with us when the pressure causes an internal malfunction so critical we think this might be it.

Or worse, because we didn’t dare to.

I’ve grown as a writer, and much of that growth is reflected in my voice. I still love to be irreverent, but I’m much quicker to catch where that is a defense mechanism signaling a clogged emotional pipe rather than an earnest desire to be carefree and witty.

Still, I feel confused and torn at times about what my voice is or should be. I know it’s best practice to kick those “shoulds” to the curb, but the social pressure to be everything for everyone still raps at my emotional door from time to time, reminding me that I’m one “bad” Substack post away from being written off for good. All lies, of course. But Should is a persistent bitch.

Sometimes I wonder if I even have a voice that’s discernable at all. I’ve been stuck inside this body, manning these fingers like a literary Bobcat for 40 years. The grooves are deep and the habits thick. I see the words I type, and I just know they’re me. But how other people perceive my words? Well, I have no idea. I’d love to hear what others think.

All that’s to say, I’ll continue digging, excavating, tunneling, coming back up for air, and seeing how far down the rabbit hole goes. I’m already too far in, and it would be a shame to fall short simply because I didn’t dare to go all the way.

–Ashley