Of course you would, right? Afterall, it is your voice and you should know your voice.
Read your last 5 blogging posts, do you really hear your own voice? The voice that you speak with in everyday life – to your friends and family? Or do you hear a different voice?
On one of her podcasts, Heidi Miller, talks about how we feel the need to be ‘stiff’ or what I call, proper, when we start sharing a message that will ‘go out to the masses.’ One interesting point she makes is that we’re so often concerned about our presentation being perfect, that we forget about it reaching the audience we’re speaking too.
I’ve struggled with this too. But what I’ve come to realize is that people don’t need me to be perfect. They don’t need, nor do they expect me, to always be right on, to say the perfect thing. Look at me, I’m using perfect in three consecutive sentences – that’s not perfect (ooooh!).
On our blogs, our audience wants to engage us. They want to get to know us. Not as website owners – but as people. And the easiest way to do allow that is by having a conversation. A relaxed, open, honest conversation about what you know and don’t know, have learned and have yet to learn.
It’s not going to hurt your business to be open and honest – to be a real person. It’s actually going to help it. People want to do business with people, not businesses. They want to know you’re real. And they want to know you can help them. No better way then to use the sound of your blogging voice to create a relationship with them.
Read Dave Taylor’s advice on finding your voice.
So, do you recognize your own voice in your blog? If so, how did you find it?
If I’m honest, I began blogging as it I was a business, not a person.
It quickly became obvious that it wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I changed. I typed as if I was talking.
Everyone should.
David,
I understand fully. I can tend to be a little too stiff myself – or worse, preachy. I figure, though, it’s called social media and blog conversation for a reason. It’s not called blog lecture.
Since I am not a good writer, my blogging voice has to be my speaking voice. I think I could definitely recognize my blogging voice.
Char,
I’m working on it too. I’ve read your blog and like what you have to say – and your style. What would you change about your writing?
I don’t think I am very good about really getting into the details. I am a big picture writer – not a nitty, gritty, paint you a portrait kind of writer – and I think that is my weakness.
An associate of mine is a real writer. Her words are perfectly chosen – no matter the subject. She was one of the writers I worked with for years. Now she is in Belgium and writing for herself – and it just keeps getting better. Check her out – http://www.v-grrrl.com – you won’t be disappointed.
[And then Liz came along, read what they wrote, and said] Pshaw, balderdash, and kerfufffle! A real writer! HA!
A real writer takes words from his or her heart and uses his or her head to put them in a way other folks can understand an authentic message.
Perfectly chosen words don’t make a real writer the connection that’s made between writer and reader is what makes one — and that’s what I see right above me.
Great talking is sharing our head and our heart through words with another. Great writing is nothing more. That’s why great writers get to ignore all of the rules we learned in 8th grade grammar. 🙂
All writers think we are less than the others. We need that self-doubt to write well. We also need to give ourselves permission to think of ourselves as writers.
All writers are a work in progress. No writer is “there” yet.
Why would anyone argue for the reasons he or she is not a writer rather than argue for the reasons he or she is becoming one?
Every writer in this comment thread is fine writer from where this writer sits. I mean that.
Dawud, David, and Char, I’ve read you. Your voices are each individual and strong. What I found was I got my voices years earlier than I found what I really wanted to talk about. That’s where the real risk was for me . . . not finding my voice, but using it to reveal my passionate subjects.
Yet when I did, it was so natural and easy. . . . and everyone around me seemed to find a whole new level of trust.
Hi all
So if I consider my ‘double Dutch-English’ as my ‘voice’ I am in the clear 😉
Pweh, good, that’s another worry gone.
Char, can relate to your description of “big picture” writer, me too, don’t have the inner patience to describe a room in its complete design details, I stick to the ‘feel’ the room gives (tiny example, but sure you know where I’m coming from) I don’t consider that a weakness, I consider that part of my ‘voice’.
Hi Karin H.,
Don’t forget your lovely sense of humor as a wonderful, musical note in your voice. 🙂 I so love your insightful, generous comments.
Ah, Liz, bless.
Thanks! 😉
Do I blog in my own voice? Geepers, I hope so! But maybe this is a question best answered by people who know my non-blogging personal/professional voice?
Ways I have tried to ensure I am:
– write as if it’s an email to someone I know
– read it out loud as if having a conversation with someone I know – do I feel stilted? formal? overly restrained? (In my case, some restraint is likely a good thing 😉
– talk it out to myself (or another person if it’s very sticky), take bullet point notes as I go, then write it like I said it
But only your readers know for sure….do they feel connected with a Real Person?
Karen
Karin H. & Liz,
Sorry to come to the conversation late. I’ve been a little busy the last day or so with moving my site.
Liz I love how you described a ‘real writer’
Yeah. I love the passion I see in your writing. It’s obvious you’ve found your voice.
And Karin H., I really enjoy reading your posts and your comments. I definitely can get a sense of who you are from the way you write – and, to me, that’s ‘real writing.’
I guess I should have said that in the post – real writing is when our audience can actually see, feel and hear who we are through our writing style.
Liz once told me that for a blogger to be successful, they must be both transparent and authentic. It seems to me that the idea of that is so people can actually get to know you in your blogging. Yeah…I think that’s going to need to be a post or two.
Thanks for letting me ramble on. Didn’t get much sleep last night. And, as always, thank you for your continued and highly valued comments.
I’m someone who has been studying writing for many, many years… and yet I have a feeling that when I start blogging (soon! very soon!), it’s still going to be a process to find my voice.
I say that because it’s a different context than I’ve been writing in for a long time. I think (although maybe my readers don’t) that my ‘voice’ comes across differently in articles vs. books vs. email, and now, vs. blogs. It’s a different context, and the process of moving our thoughts through our words is shaped, even if very slightly, by that context.
Two great resources I’ll recommend:
Publication coach.com, the site of Daphne Gray-Grant… her ezine is amazing, and incredible powerful (even though it’s super short). Her work has impacted my writing in a huge way.
Spunk and Bite.com, the website of the book of the same name. AMAZING read, very enlightening.
Okay, so now you know my secrets… 😉
Hi Dawud
Thank you! Must honestly say that it is kind of a family trait (3 uncles who are/were journalists, lots of cousins into AmDram etc) but glad to ‘hear’ you enjoy my ‘voice’
Funny thing though, lately I discovered that writing in English seems to ‘suit’ me much better than my native language. Although a very rich language on its own, I think English is much more subtle and allows me (I think) to ‘fine-tune’ my thoughts better.
(Oops, forgot to fill in the maths, comment gone – but thankfully cocomment came to the rescue – again)
Karin H.,
You’re welcome. Interesting about writing in English. I often wonder if perhaps English might be a bit ‘freer’ of a language because of its origin. English is a mut. Much of what we can claim of our own is slang. The rest, we’ve borrowed from the other great languages of the world. So perhaps there’s a reason in there?
Dawud, don’t know about that. Dutch is from the same ‘family’ as English (Germanic) and has borrowed form the same other languages also (French, Latin, Spanish, Scandinavian).
Can’t explain it really, Dutch feels much more ‘restricted’ and (I’ve been told many times over) a very difficult language to learn as a foreigner. Could be its ‘simplicity’? Without losing its richness of course
Karin H.,
No, I didn’t know that. I thought we Americans were the only one with a ‘mut’ language. Is Dutch older than American English?
Adam,
I wonder about that too. I probably have a few different voices, in all honesty. I’m a little different in person than on the phone. And I tend to be even a bit different from those in how I write. Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps it’s the medium. Not sure.
Thanks for the resources. I’ll check them out.
Oh, now you’re asking for a history lesson 😉
Dutch, the language spoken in The Netherlands (or Holland as so many, too many for my liking, keep calling our small country, but that’s also down to historical ‘marketing’) originates from ‘Diets’ spoken in Western Europe (Germany among other countries) around the Middle ages. German Diets evolved into German (or Duits as we and they say) and The Netherlands’ ‘Diets’ evolved into Dutch (or as we say: Nederlands).
We were invaded by Spain, France etc which ‘left’ their own borrowed words.
So yes, definitely older than American-English (BTW, why do you drop the u out of everything: coloUr, neighboUr ;-))
Historical the Dutch (from The Netherlands) were sailors, explorers, conquerors of many colonies (Far-East, Caribbean and South-Africa). Always after the Portuguese and before the English Empire. ‘We’ were known around the world so to say.
Side-note: the ‘Dutchies’ in the USA are original German people who called themselves in their own language Duitsers, which does sound like the more known (due to history) Dutch = The Netherlands.
End of lesson 1 😉 (Yes, history is a great hobby of mine, makes you understand the modern world a bit better)
Karin H.,
I believe we drop the ‘u’ (on a lot of words) because of Noah Webster.
I think I remember reading somewhere that when he compiled his dictionary, he wanted American English to be distinct from British English. So through the favour of his labour, and to the horrour of some, he declared himself the govenour of American English.
I think he’s responsible for other changes too, though I can’t remember any off hand. Jail comes to mind, but I don’t know it’s original word.