Discovering My Writer's Voice...

I’ve been blogging for just over a month now, I’m really enjoying it. But, I’ve come to a realisation… I am really struggling. My issue is discovering my writer’s voice and I’m not going to lie. It’s come as a bit of a shock! My day job is as an English teacher and I really enjoy, just writing stuff… Surely it should just come naturally?!

Alas! It would seem that the answer to that question is in fact a big fat NO! I’ve been spending some time reading back through my blog posts and I’m not sure that any of them really ‘sound’ like me. If that makes sense?

The problem is that I’m not really sure how to make them sound more like me.

Who is the real me?

I think that the problem is that there are lots of different ‘versions’ of me.

As a teacher I have a ‘persona’ that is like the most formal version of myself. The way that I dress, behave, speak and the language I use are all adapted for that role. Which is absolutely as it should be, otherwise no one would ever take me seriously!

However, anybody who knows me in ‘real life’ will know that I have a quite a foul mouth (I do love a bit of profanity) I can be terribly sarcastic and I have quite a dark and dry sense of humour… (I sound like a real gem don’t I?!!)

It’s a huge contrast to ‘teacher Clare’ which, I think is why I think I’m struggling to discover ‘my voice’ for the blog.

For the love of the profane

My love of the profane comes from my opinion that if I am not offended by the use of any kind of language, and I embrace and use it on my own terms, (and I enunciate like a lady!) then no one else, can use words to offend, control or intimidate me. Personally, I find that really empowering.

There’s nothing like the look on a man’s face when they have just called you a c*** in an attempt to try and offend you and you retort ‘I’m sorry, I’m very confused… How can I be offended by something that I possess?!’

But, I know that not everyone feels that way, and I would hate to offend anybody. Which makes finding my voice in a public domain really difficult, because it does feel a bit like.. If there is zero profanity then genuinely I’m not being myself…

I don’t sound like me!

It’s not just the lack of profanity, I feel like the way that I write, the tone, ‘sounds’ nothing like me… It’s way more formal than I am in ‘real life’. Generally, when I speak I use quite a bit of slang, and lots of different regional words or phrases that I’ve picked up from all the different places I’ve lived… I have quite a varied vocabulary and I love quite complex words.. Tintinnabulation anyone?!

Basically I’m a foul mouthed, slang speaking eejit with a penchant for some posh vernacular when the mood suits! How the hell am I going to manage to write like that?!! (and not lose the day job!)

Getting the hang of this blog writing malarkey

I just really want my blog to be ‘readable’. For it to be entertaining, helpful, warm, welcoming and for anyone who reads it to feel like we’d be able to have a good old chinwag if we met in real life..

I guess what that means is that I want to be able to connect on some kind of level with the people who read my blog. Which really I suppose is all any writer wants. They want their audience to be engaged with what they are reading.

I’m hoping that the more I write, the easier it will become to find my voice, and the balance between being a teacher used to presenting information in a formal way and that foul mouthed, slang speaking eejit with a penchant for the occasional use of posh vernacular!