how to find your voice as a writer

simple step-by-step instructions

You read.

You seek out conversation and critique about the subject matter and the author and structure from podcasts and reddit forums and Google black holes and friends.

You write.

You trust yourself.

You think.

You overthink.

You Google “how to write?”

You over consume for a while.

You lock your doors and screens and consume nothing for a while.

You keep writing.

You take your words for a walk and talk about them with friends and let people read them.

You keep writing.

You keep reading.

You get drunk. You’re hungover. You decide that you can’t drink if you want to be a writer.

You see an Off-Broadway play.

You start to journal most mornings.

You hate journaling most mornings.

You take a writing class and listen to what the teacher says about your writing.

You compare yourself to others and hate what you write.

You listen to the excuses everyone gives for not having time to write.

You cancel plans with a situationship to write on prompts inspired by your shadow self.

You build up proof with each short piece of work that you can do this.

You set a deadline.

You get coffee with a friend and she makes a joke about Thanksgiving. You ask her if you can use that. She says yes.

You write the joke about Thanksgiving in your story.

Your writing class hates the joke about Thanksgiving.

You make strong style choices about your identity with your clothing.

You get your Tarot cards read.

You make a list about who’s work you like and why, who’s work you dislike and why.

You binge watch Nip/Tuck and you write about your parents divorce mostly using medical jargon.

You read your work out loud to people. You feel what it’s like to have those words in your mouth and you make a decision if that feels good or bad.

You get depressed.

You paint your bathroom.

You take another writing class and listen to what the teacher says about everyone else’s writing.

You compare yourself to others and like what you write.

You let Spotify play whatever it wants to for a month and write down lyrics that catch your ear.

You ask everyone about their opinion of you.

You gain followers.

You ask some people about their opinion of you.

You lose followers.

You stop asking anyone their opinion of you.

You lose more followers.

You start drinking again, alone in a bar, and you find the end to your story.

You reread an early piece and you think it’s good.

You binge The Bear.

You rewrite your last script so the dialogue sounds more true to life.

You lock yourself in your apartment for the weekend and watch movies of different genres.

You read your work out loud and someone you don’t know compliments you.

That happens again

That happens again.

You stop writing for 2 months.

You Google “grad school?”

You go on a date, it was fine but you’ll never see them again. You go home and watch the documentary about serial killers they recommended.

You join an accountability group.

You challenge yourself to cute 300 words from your latest chapter.

You challenge yourself to write a story where the character succeeds by giving up.

You read your story in public and everyone likes the joke about Thanksgiving.

You write a lot things you fucking hate.

You write one thing you fucking love.

You get a subscription to the New Yorker.

You go on vacation, you bring 3 New Yorker issues, but meet an 83-year-old woman who tells you about her 4 ex-husbands and accidentally the magazines at the hotel when you leave.

You read the fastest story you’ve ever written out loud and 6 people you don’t know complement you.

You read something that’s taken you 7 months to write out loud and no one says anything to you.

You read a book from new author who doesn’t use capitalization and it dawns on you that there are no rules.

You get drunk at a networking event and embarrass yourself in front of your friend’s agent.

You swear to never drink again.

You submit to Modern Love.

You take another writing class.

You reread your old work and you hate it.

You lock yourself in your apartment for the weekend and only watch stand-up specials.

You go to a Broadway play.

You spend one week agonizing over whether or not you should put time and energy into writing a play.

You decided you won’t write a play.

You realize you’ve never once used a comma.

You realize you write like you’re talking to your best friend.

You realize your favorite author uses prose, so you try it on.

You are genuinely happy for the person in your first writing class who gets a book deal.

You are jealous of the person in your accountability group who got hired to write for a TV show.

You get rejected from Modern Love

You find yourself writing about your erratic behaviour after your last break-up, and you realize you weirdly understand yourself better after you watched that serial killer documentary.

You see a person from your writing class on the street and they ignore you.

You journal for an hour about it.

Your friend says your new story is “90’s sleepover meets Elizabethan times.”

You like that.

You decide to completely quit and move to Mexico and you remember a podcast you listened to that interviewed the director of the Broadway show you saw and you write some weird pep talk thing to yourself in your notes app.

You read a memoir and you hate the way the author writes about sex.

You write about sex.

You hate writing about sex.

You love writing about longing.

You read a New Yorker article that has nothing to do with longing but to you it’s all about longing.

You write down phrases you love from that New Yorker article underneath the lyrics you liked in a note titled “To Steal.”

You use some of these by keeping the sentiment of but rewriting the words.

You put those phrases in a story about a first date from Hinge.

You add prose but keep the best friend tone.

You remember the serial killer documentary and try to make both characters more well-rounded.

You read your friend’s book and decide you are a better writer than them.

You go to your writing class and decide you are the worst writer in the class.

You start to get annoyed by everyone in your accountability group and you quit.

You reread your old work and you are in awe of your talent.

You write.

You read.

You write more.

You have a drink.

Or something like that.