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.
Writers are in control of editing processes - making a sentence better, cutting out a paragraph. But the initial outpouring has very little to do with conscious control or manipulation.
I knew nothing about the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing, I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication of my new novel, Tarzan and the Lost Empire, there are 31 books on my list.
The first thing that an architect must do is to sense that every building you build is a world of its own, and that this world of its own serves an institution.
Often, especially young artists, you feel like you should be doing something. And I think that can be very destructive because creativity is about connecting with the stuff that's deep inside you and making something out of that.
It was incredible to have J Dilla in your dining room making beats - it was one of the greatest experiences I've had.
In fiction, imaginary people become realer to us than any named celebrity glimpsed in a series of rumored events, whose causes and subtler ramifications must remain in the dark. An invented figure like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary emerges fully into the light of understanding, which brings with it identification, sympathy and pity.
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