More on: Finding Your Authentic Voice: Excerpt from my book: A Friendly Guide to Writing and Ghostwriting

Some years back, a girlfriend offered to teach me to ride a horse. I was scared since I’d never ridden before, but I was also excited – until I climbed up into the saddle. I white knuckled the reins, I was stiff as a board and I felt anxious and at odds with the powerful creature beneath me. I was battling the horse’s rhythm and movements, but I kept on practicing until one day, I got into the saddle, I relaxed, and I felt the horse’s natural gait for the first time. I tuned into her rhythm. My friend looked over at me, smiled, and said, “You found your seat.” As I posted up and down in an easy gait, the saddle seemed to get softer and I could hardly wait for the next day to do it all over again.

A similar kind of experience arises when you’re looking for your writing voice. It’s about shedding layers, being patient, calming yourself down, finding the real you, and relaxing into that saddle. When it happens, you’ll be able to feel it, just like I knew when I finally got in tune with the horse.

Here are some methods I’ve found to capture your authentic writing voice:

1.     Do some journal writing which only you will read. Writing with no filters will help you get closer to yourself.

2.     Tell someone a story on tape and listen back to the way you speak, the rhythm of your sentences, and the particular words you tend to use.

3.     Read some of your earliest writings. I like to reread my first book from time to time because I knew so little about my craft when I wrote it, the material came out raw and honest.

4.     Write the whole truth in your first draft. Use real names. You can change the names and edit it later. If you don’t describe how you really feel in the moment, your writing voice will suffer.

5.     Don't try to sound like anyone else. Sound like you, even if you think you’re less knowledgeable or articulate than somone else.

Just remember, if your material is boring to you, it’ll be worse for the reader.

There’s so much commotion out in the world. There are so many of us clamoring after the same things and wanting to be heard and understood. Your voice is how you can set yourself apart. Some of us speak with humor and others are serious. Some of us use lots of adjectives, slang phrases, clichés, and curse words. Others are more formal, terse, and conservative. Some like to shock and others like to soothe. It all works as long as it’s real.

Ask yourself:

• Is this how I really sound or how I want to sound?

• Is this how I feel or how I want to feel?

• Is this my real opinion or am I copying someone else’s?

• Are my honest reactions too humiliating to admit, even to myself?

• Can I withstand the feelings that come up when I write freely and unfiltered?

I once got a job to rewrite the first draft of a proposal for a life coach. Her agent said the writing had no punch and it was dry. Her text was drab and boring. Her material was strewn with italics, unnecessary capital letters and exclamation points (my pet peeve), and her constant off-sides sounded smart-alecky and arrogant. In order to fix these things, I deleted extraneous words and punctuation so it would read more smoothly and I changed the tone when I could. That was why she had hired me.

When I returned her material sans clichés, bad punctuation, and unnecessary repetitions, she put back everything that I’d changed and deleted.

“Why did you change it all back?” I asked her.

“Because this is my voice,” she said defensively.

It wasn’t. Peppering your writing with distractions signifies an amateur writer who doesn’t trust her readers to understand what she’s trying to say. This woman’s attempts at writing how she wanted to sound were covering up her authentic voice and there was no way a reader could connect with her. I suggested she read some other authors in her genre to get a sense of how good writing sounds, but she wasn’t interested. It was no surprise then, that no one was interested enough to publish her book.

Students ask me if I recommend reading other authors while they’re writing their own books. Reading other people’s books can be inspirational and enjoyable. In fact, it’s a must for writers. But if you're prone to copying other people’s styles, you might want to stick with your own book until you cement your writing voice and get comfortable with it. When you don't represent yourself authentically, it's uncanny how a reader can feel the lack of integrity. When you stop chasing page counts and word counts, when you stop trying to emulate someone else and just be yourself, you have a chance to express your individuality. This will make your work accessible and enjoyable to the reader and it will encourage you to keep on writing.