On finding your voice, first and second drafts, and rewrites

This one’s a two-parter because why wait until next week to share? Life is now!

I always say, if it sounds like you, it’s good writing.

But what if you don’t sound like you on the page?

Me, I had the opposite problem growing up. I was so shy, I’d be tongue tied in person. Everything would come out wrong or I’d forget what I’d want to say and how I wanted to say it. There was a complete disconnect between the voice in my head and the sounds coming out of my mouth. I think it’s called Ego (or Super-Ego, if you want to get nitpicky).

Writing, however was my safe space. A place where I could say whatever I wanted without the glare of the spotlight of others’ attention. Over the years, I wrote and honed my craft, to the point that it became the easiest, most natural thing for me to do. Where my writing became my truest self, when everything else felt made up.

Eventually, I did some work on me so I could show up the way I felt on paper in person too.

But what if you haven’t found your voice yet?

I work with writers who sound so good over Zoom, I keep threatening to record and transcribe our calls and turn THAT into a book.

Sometimes, though, they struggle to sound like themselves on the written, or digital, page. Maybe because so many of us are used to writing the way we’ve been taught in school. Or writing the way we think we’re supposed to sound, on screen and on paper. 

So how do you get back to you? The real you? Before all that academic stuff and programming got in the way and cramped your style?

You write. And write. And write. Until eventually, through the sheer pressure of volume and practise and showing up day after day, messy or not, you begin to drop those inhibitions and bad writing habits and relax into a posture of complete don’t give a f*ck ease.  

That’s when YOU begin to show up on the page.

Then you realize you like the sound of you, and others like you too, so you do more of it, revealing even more of yourself, and now the crowds love it.

Now you’re writing.

Which brings me to…Part II:

I have a client who dutifully finished his first draft, just like I told him to.

“I don’t care how it sounds, just get it all down on the page, everything in your head, pour it out, we’ll deal with the rest later.”

And he did.

Problem was, he hadn’t found his voice yet, and so he thought it sounded like crap.

But guess what?

After all that, he finally found his voice. So he was left with a choice: 1) Adjust the book he’d already written to match his newfound voice? Or 2) Scrap the book and start over.

He was excited to see where Option 2 would take him and I encouraged him to go for it, even though I’d already spent weeks revising his first draft. The book comes first.

My point is, some people like to edit their work in layers. I’m like an oil painter: I keep adding and revising, back and forth, up and down, even though the story remains essentially the same. 

But I know plenty of writers who write their first draft. Scrap it. Then write their second draft from scratch, and they nail it. Something about working through it all with that messy first draft and then rewriting it from the POV of 20/20 hindsight works for them—even though it feels like torture to me.

When it comes to writing, there is no right way or wrong way. There’s just your way. And the only way you’re going to find out what works for you is trial and error. Which is pretty cool, when you think of it, don’t you think?