On Writing.

There's this David Sedaris quote that I see pretty regularly cropping up on the internet at stuff.

"Write relentlessly until you find your voice. Then, use it."

That's something that a lot of published authors have either said or demonstrated through their own bodies of work. A.S. King, a young adult author whom I admire greatly apparently wrote seven full novels before she wrote one that got published (and, if I understand correctly, that she even wanted/tried to get published). She spent that long developing her voice and finding the style that she would become known for. It's incredible!

I've never written a full novel. I have written some shorter pieces that I've been really proud of before, but they always seemed pretty experimental. Not to mention they were usually assignments for school, so it was hardly self motivated. That's the one thing about writing that is really hard for me; I am not a self-starter.

Right now I am in the middle of writing a novel that I may or may not end up liking. The last time I participated in NaNoWriMo, two years ago, I got to the 50,000 word count and hated what I'd written. It was an idea I'd wanted to make into a book for years, and when I'd actually spent a month writing it I didn't like what I'd come up with at all.

This year, I'm enjoying writing the story I decided to go with a lot more, but it's also turning into something I didn't really have in mind and I'm not totally sure the direction it's taking is one I like. But we'll see. Maybe I'll end up liking it after all.

I'm also currently listening to the audiobook Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie, which is a memoir written in the third person. It's so incredibly fascinating even though I've only read one of his novels, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, which was published in 2015 after Joseph Anton. It's really cool to learn insights into his writing process and how different things affected him as a person and as a writer and all sorts of stuff like that. I'm not really holding my breath on becoming a published author, nor am I planning to try to support myself exclusively by writing, and I'm certainly not expecting to ever be on Salman Rushdie's level of fame and recognition, but it is really cool to learn about it all the same.

It makes me wonder if I will ever have a style that is my signature. One time, in college, a professor told me that he found my writing to be Vonnegut-esque, which is maybe the highest praise I've ever received. I don't think that's what my particular writing style is like any more. I just don't know what it is now. And I don't really know what I want it to be, either. I've also been told often that my writing reads with my exact voice. That's pretty believable to me; I definitely think that I write how I speak and I probably don't spend nearly as much time editing/revising as I should, so it is logical that my written words sound just like my unedited spoken words.

I don't really know what the point of all that is, it's just a collection of thoughts I've been having these days as I write my "novel" and listen to an author's memoir.

Speaking of my novel, I HAVE CROSSED THE FINISH LINE! With a week to spare, I have officially written 50,000 words. Go me.