Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.
Interpretation
Your writing reflects your true self and should convey your thoughts and feelings authentically.
This quote emphasizes that a writer's voice is a profound expression of their inner self, going beyond mere stylistic choices or surface-level engagement. It suggests that genuine writing resonates with readers when it authentically conveys the writer's thoughts, emotions, and essence, allowing for a deeper connection between the writer and their audience.
In practice
A motivational speaker might use this quote in a workshop about self-expression through writing.
It's not that he lacked poetry. But his poetry was of the body, not the mind. He spoke it in the way he moved, the way he held a hammer, rowed a boat, built a fire. I, on the other hand, was like a brain in a box, a beating heart in a coal scuttle.
I think what gets a poem going is an initiating line. Sometimes a first line will occur, and it goes nowhere; but other times - and this, I think, is a sense you develop - I can tell that the line wants to continue.
A blind man can make art if what is in his mind can be passed to another mind in some tangible form.
There are musicians who go through their lives sort of shedding their skins. For me, I've always felt backward-compatible to Version 1.0.
To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters. Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.
The architects who benefit us most maybe those generous enough to lay aside their claims to genius in order to devote themselves to assembling graceful but predominantly unoriginal boxes. Architecture should have the confidence and the kindness to be a little boring.
Books are acts of composition: you compose them. You make music: the music is called fiction.
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