Finding Your Voice

"What exactly is voice?" and "How do I find my voice?" are questions often asked in Wildfire Writing class.

I've been writing for so long that mostly I don't think about my writing voice anymore. However, I stopped creating art for many years, and this is a fresh area where I experience confusion. For a while, I thought my doodles and drawings didn't matter to the world. Slowly, I let them disappear. I've learned I cannot do this, for when you stop creating, it is equal to letting your voice be silenced.

The first step in finding your voice is to decide your voice is worth using. Listen to yourself speak; pay attention to your yearning to create, paint, dance or build sand castles. In visual art, this means to start playing with images that you enjoy. In literary art, it means putting down one word, line or sentence at a time, experiencing your idea and how it sounds.

It is vital that you air that voice before you start trying to do anything else with it. You can't cultivate something you're not using--and the more you experiment with your voice, the more you can enjoy, appreciate and develop who you are on the canvas or on the page.

I like the way I've drawn this in today's doodle.



Yes. Be yourself, and keep being.

What part of your voice are you silencing? How might you be stifling your creativity?