Finding your voice and setting goals
I was watching another episode of Niel Gaiman's masterclass yesterday (the one called Finding your own Voice) where he talks about how you need to write a lot before you're able to "find your voice" and start writing stuff that is actually good. He mentioned some quotes I really liked which I'll paraphrase here:
- Your voice is the things you do wrong
- He said this is actually a quote from Jerry Garcia (the guitarist from Grateful Dead)
- If you did everything 100% correctly then you would sound exactly the same as everyone else. This was in the context that one shouldn't stress about finding your voice because your voice is what will happen anyways once you stop trying.
- There are a million bad drawings in your pencil. As an artist your job is to get them out so you can get to the new ones.
- This was a quote by Chuck Jones, one of the main illustrators behind the Looney Tunes.
- This was in the context about the importance of just doing it, which is a requirement to actually improve — just thinking about doing something won't really make you any better.
While watching this episode I started wondering why I was actually seeing it. Why am I even going through the effort of watching this masterclass.
Ever since I was little I've thought that writers had the coolest job in the world — perhaps after Himalayan yogis who got to sit around all day pondering the mysteries of reality. And while I have written some stories I'm not near as feverish at it as other people.
For example, in this episode Niel Gaiman said that he had "crates" (his word) of unfinished stories by the time he was 17 (this was a comment about not feeling bad for not finishing stuff, although there is more to learn if one sees them to completion). I have started (as in wrote down something) maybe 20 or 30 stories total, with 3 or so finished.
Pondering this made me realize that even though I've had this yearning to create stories ever since I can remember I haven't really done anything about it. I don't think I want to transition careers (I'm very lucky in that I really enjoy my job), but I do want to set a goal and hopefully do something in this direction. I want to learn to create experiences that, as Tolkien puts it, hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.
I want to create (small) things I can share, hopefully while also sharing some of the emotions that move me. Be able to build bridges and connect with others, be able to make sense of the world through narratives.
Earlier today I was browsing around Bearblog and stumbled upon Elisa's blog Floating Flinders. All her posts are great and I love the clarity of self reflection and honesty in her writing. But there is one post in particular that resonates with what I'm writing here, her post about 15 minute stories. She writes short stories inspired by her dreams but the goal is just to write something and not think much about it. Sort of like wordvomits I guess, just start with an idea and let yourself run with it for a short while.
I've been going through some of the ones she's posted and I really like them. I like the format, and the freedom / flexibility it brings. So I want to set that as my writing goal: get in the habit of making 15 minute stories of my own!