Some people can't help borrowing accents. You know what I mean - the American who suddenly sounds slightly British when walking around London, the person who gains an accent when talking with an exchange student. I find that I do this with writing. There are certain writers, only 3 that I've noticed, who tend to worm their voices into my brain. I start thinking like them, talking like them, and worst of all, writing like them. I don't like this because I need to find my own voice. So today, given that I've just finished a novel by one of these writers, I will keep my writing efforts to revision rather than creation, knowing that any new material will end up being written in a weak imitation of his voice.
Here are some examples:
1. Going to personal training is like going to hell with a very nice person, a person you would be friends with if she didn't so obviously think that pushups with one arm is a good idea.
2. Her husband awoke her as usual, at the 5:00 hour when her body normally roused itself, looking about for disturbances and normally going back to sleep. However, his acrobatics were more prolonged than usual - he was a man for whom a simple 90 degree turn was insufficient - each change in position necessitated at least 180 degrees of rotation and some degree of levitation from the bed. In order to halt the volcano, she spoke, asking how she could help. It was the cat causing the problem, an inordinately heavy puddle of sleeping fur that was preventing the acrobatics from achieving their end goal. Scooping up the fur, she re-deposited the cat goo next to her own thigh and the bed was finally still. But while her husband went immediately to sleep, she lay awake, eyes and consciousness linked to the drowsy body which had found the disturbance it was looking for.
3. As she shoveled the slowly rotting grass out over the bare tree roots, she felt a deep pull from within. The rich smell of decay reminded her of her own body's smells, the rich smell of menstruation, the threatening shedding of fertility deemed unclean and fearful by society for centuries past.
All my own writing, but all in imitative voices. For fun, see if you can pick which author goes with which example: Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Safran Foer, Anne Lamott.
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3 comments:
I would only be guessing so I will withhold comment on which author influenced you in writing each passage. How observant you are to recognize when your words are being shaped by the style of the authors whose works you read. I imagine that you created each passage at different times after reading a significant amount by each author respectively. I believe your maturity as a person and as a writer is evident when you recognize what is not your voice even if you wrote the words. This recognition can empower you to edit so that your truest expression comes forth.
I remember my middle school days when I didn't want to read anyone else's poetry because I knew I was impressionable. At the time, I did not know the phrase "finding my own voice" and I don't believe I had heard the word "impressionable" yet. Something in me just knew that I should be careful about reading the work of others at that time.
Poetry was plentiful when I was in elementary school and it caused no problem for me. But as a pre-teen, I did not want to accept the creative influences I began to feel. It paid off because during that same period, I won a citywide contest for poetry. I hope you keep this sensitivity as you continue to write.
Creekmore Crockett - the Rock Creek Geek
Thanks for the encouragement, Cheryl! This is one reason I don't read on my writing days - and, for example, why I spent yesterday revising instead of creating.
How interesting that you know enough about your impressionability that a single day is enough space to put between reading and creating!? Some people don't know how to separate the two.
Now since we as writers learned to write (as everyone does) while reading exclusively the works of others, how much of our writing bears the marks of the books we read in high school, college or as children? ...How about the books that were read to us before we began to write?
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