Book

STEP 9: Finding My Voice

December 1, 2018

I knew that writing a book would take some time, but I underestimated how difficult it would actually be to write. I began writing my book in early July and thought it was a great accomplishment that I finished writing over 55,000 words by the end of August, eight weeks later. My writing this past summer just flowed. It was easy to get out everything I had to say.

After the conversation with my developmental editor towards the end of October, I thought to myself “I got this”. But one week later when I began reworking my manuscript, I quickly figured out that I don’t have this. My developmental editor challenged me to find my voice. She told me that my writing felt distant. It was as if I hadn’t leaned into the story and I was leaving emotion and feelings out of what I was describing. I needed open up more.

I arrived in Bali at the beginning of November and my main focus was to finish my second manuscript before I flew back to Ohio for Thanksgiving. I created eight different essays, each representing a theme in my life. I divided up the text that I had already written. However some of the stories that my editor suggested I dive deeper into were only a few sentences long. So I had more writing ahead of me.

During the first two weeks of November, I wrote 50,000 new words, basically an entire new book. I had certainly leaned in, but a new problem popped up: when do I lean in and when don’t I lean in? I had leaned into every detail but it was too much. The book should only be 50,000 words but now I had over 100,000 words. So now I would need to go back through the book again to cut and ensure the story still made sense. Frustration had set in. Writing was much harder than I thought.

And, on top of cutting, I would need to ensure my voice came through in the stories that remained. Over the past two weeks as I have been cutting and reworking the essays, I have worked hard at finding my voice. What did I see? What did I hear? What did I taste? What did I smell? What did I feel? And then how much sensory is too much? How much is too little?

Through this process, I have uncovered a trick that has helped me recreate scenes to find my voice. I have begun to record myself speaking the story out loud. I go back in time and remember the story like I am watching it on a movie screen. I record everything I see, hear, taste, smell and touch as I walk through the scene. And then I play the recording back and begin typing. The text is raw at first but having something on paper is easier to adjust than having nothing on paper. This has helped overcome the writing blocks that have popped up over the past couple weeks.

I didn’t meet my goal to finish my writing by Thanksgiving. But I don’t want to rush this book either. Writing this book has been a huge learning curve. When I began, I thought it would just be easy to sit down and write. But it has been so much more effort than that. My new goal is to finish up the writing this weekend and then send it off to a copyright editor next week to ensure the grammar and punctuation are correct.

The end of the journey is near but it has been such an incredible ride. I’m almost there!