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.
Language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough.
The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.
A man should dress in a way that you don't notice. He looks good and you don't know why. But it's the tailoring, the materials, and the clothes.
I learn poetry, learn text, and that really keeps you alive.
I would be the unhappiest person imaginable, confronted daily with disastrous works crying out with errors, imprecision, carelessness, amateurishness. I avoided this punishment by destroying them, I thought, and suddenly I took great pleasure in the word destroying.
She screamed, the high scream that was neither human nor animal but something terrible in between, the sort of sound that you never forget no matter how many beautiful things you hear afterward.
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