I lost my confidence about my voice, too. I became fed up with being gaslit (it's just negative self-talk, you just need more practice, etc). No. It's not negative self-talk because I read my favorite author and the prose has "something", and then I read my prose and it's dead. Whatever is in my favorite author's prose is certainly missing from mine. It's not a case of "good" or "bad"...something is missing.
This is when I had the horrible realization—is something missing from my writing? Or is the balance of ingredients all wrong? I have spent years looking for a missing ingredient, a certain something I can add to my writing that would automatically make it amazing. I would add this one secret ingredient and suddenly I would have a "voice". I'm beginning to think this is just fantasy though, because the chances are that it's more about balance.
The "missing ingredient" would be too easy. A much harder problem to solve is balance. What happens if I have all the right ingredients but the proportions are all wrong? This problem is infinitely harder to solve than a missing ingredient.
So am I doomed to just keep tweaking the ingredient ratios and hoping I stumble upon a recipe for a voice? This doesn't seem like a healthy way to approach this problem.
I'm still nowhere near finding my voice so I have no useful advice, but one thing I can say for sure is that reading bad prose is better for you than reading good prose. You mentioned how you felt like everyone at Berklee was better at playing the instrument than you were. This is the problem I have too...I read Nabokov and I desperately want my prose to be as good as his. Time to get real though, it is never going to be as good as Nabokov...but does it "really" need to be? Maybe I'm looking at the wrong target, though. I bet you can play the guitar (and piano) better than a good chunk of very famous musicians. They managed to use their limited playing skills and somehow created popular music, so If they can do it, so can you.
This is where I'm at now. I've spent (wasted) so much time wanting to be something I'm never going to be. This is a dead end and a sure way to never find my voice, but I'm getting more confidence from reading prose that isn't elite. I'm reading prose from famous authors and there is a little voice in my head saying "you can do that", or on the odd occasion, "you can do better than that".
I think that might be my big problem. I want to learn how to juggle 10 chainsaws before I know how to even juggle 3 balls. There are plenty of famous authors out there who can only juggle 3 balls, and they somehow managed to tell amazing stories that way. I don't need to juggle 10 chainsaws to tell my story, but I do need to be honest about my skill level and use it to my advantage.
Good luck finding your voice...I've been on this mission for the last 15 years, so God help the both of us.
Thank you for this very thoughtful response! I don’t know if I have a perfect answer either, but the process of writing this essay helped me realize the best thing I can do is simply love writing. If you do something and you love it, it will get better—full stop. It’s when we try to do things from a place of fear or perfectionism that we get stuck. So now, when I sit down to write, I try to do it from a place of love, passion, and curiosity, and it certainly helps.
There's no shortage of "goldern rules" when it comes to writing, but I think that one has to be up there somewhere. If you aren't excited by your writing, then there's no way anyone else will be turned on by your writing either.
Paradoxically, my writing seems to have improved by actually getting worse. There are so many "rules" to follow, and it is only recently that I thought, "the hell with the rules" and just wrote whatever was in my head...it actually seems to have given my prose a faint spark of life.
This whole subject is super interesting so I really loved your article. I would be interested in maybe reading a follow up one in a month or two.
Matt, this was amazing and I love how you structured this post. Personally, I feel I do my best writing not when I’m feeling the most confident about it but when I’m being truly vulnerable with the words I choose to put down. After all, there is something confident about having enough courage to be vulnerable in a world where so many mask their true emotions.
I lost my confidence about my voice, too. I became fed up with being gaslit (it's just negative self-talk, you just need more practice, etc). No. It's not negative self-talk because I read my favorite author and the prose has "something", and then I read my prose and it's dead. Whatever is in my favorite author's prose is certainly missing from mine. It's not a case of "good" or "bad"...something is missing.
This is when I had the horrible realization—is something missing from my writing? Or is the balance of ingredients all wrong? I have spent years looking for a missing ingredient, a certain something I can add to my writing that would automatically make it amazing. I would add this one secret ingredient and suddenly I would have a "voice". I'm beginning to think this is just fantasy though, because the chances are that it's more about balance.
The "missing ingredient" would be too easy. A much harder problem to solve is balance. What happens if I have all the right ingredients but the proportions are all wrong? This problem is infinitely harder to solve than a missing ingredient.
So am I doomed to just keep tweaking the ingredient ratios and hoping I stumble upon a recipe for a voice? This doesn't seem like a healthy way to approach this problem.
I'm still nowhere near finding my voice so I have no useful advice, but one thing I can say for sure is that reading bad prose is better for you than reading good prose. You mentioned how you felt like everyone at Berklee was better at playing the instrument than you were. This is the problem I have too...I read Nabokov and I desperately want my prose to be as good as his. Time to get real though, it is never going to be as good as Nabokov...but does it "really" need to be? Maybe I'm looking at the wrong target, though. I bet you can play the guitar (and piano) better than a good chunk of very famous musicians. They managed to use their limited playing skills and somehow created popular music, so If they can do it, so can you.
This is where I'm at now. I've spent (wasted) so much time wanting to be something I'm never going to be. This is a dead end and a sure way to never find my voice, but I'm getting more confidence from reading prose that isn't elite. I'm reading prose from famous authors and there is a little voice in my head saying "you can do that", or on the odd occasion, "you can do better than that".
I think that might be my big problem. I want to learn how to juggle 10 chainsaws before I know how to even juggle 3 balls. There are plenty of famous authors out there who can only juggle 3 balls, and they somehow managed to tell amazing stories that way. I don't need to juggle 10 chainsaws to tell my story, but I do need to be honest about my skill level and use it to my advantage.
Good luck finding your voice...I've been on this mission for the last 15 years, so God help the both of us.
Thank you for this very thoughtful response! I don’t know if I have a perfect answer either, but the process of writing this essay helped me realize the best thing I can do is simply love writing. If you do something and you love it, it will get better—full stop. It’s when we try to do things from a place of fear or perfectionism that we get stuck. So now, when I sit down to write, I try to do it from a place of love, passion, and curiosity, and it certainly helps.
There's no shortage of "goldern rules" when it comes to writing, but I think that one has to be up there somewhere. If you aren't excited by your writing, then there's no way anyone else will be turned on by your writing either.
Paradoxically, my writing seems to have improved by actually getting worse. There are so many "rules" to follow, and it is only recently that I thought, "the hell with the rules" and just wrote whatever was in my head...it actually seems to have given my prose a faint spark of life.
This whole subject is super interesting so I really loved your article. I would be interested in maybe reading a follow up one in a month or two.
Thanks Mike! I really appreciate you taking the time to check it out.
Matt, this was amazing and I love how you structured this post. Personally, I feel I do my best writing not when I’m feeling the most confident about it but when I’m being truly vulnerable with the words I choose to put down. After all, there is something confident about having enough courage to be vulnerable in a world where so many mask their true emotions.
Thanks for reading, Tiffany! And I agree. Sometimes we have to step into that risky territory to feel like we’re doing the best work we’re capable of.