i'm sorry, i can't hear you
"I need to hear your voice in this piece," says my feature writing teacher, looking up from the article I've printed out.
My voice? Where did it go? After a year of having my writing taken apart, I've started to whisper.
We've spent a year working on our writing, and I struggle to advance when I still don't know what I'm doing wrong and what I'm doing right. I should be screaming eloquently in my own voice at this point, but I seem to be choking on my own words.
While one person may love my metaphors and smile at my similes, another will pull out a red pen and tell me to revise my work.
There are also the conflicting rules of journalism. While broadcast journalism encourages a cheesy play on words, magazine writing shakes its big wordy head in dissaproval.
I want to advance in my writing, to dig deeper, to touch upon more of my thoughts and to burn up the page with my honesty.
But with two essays, two feature stories and my own writing under my belt, I'm starting to feel burried.
I've got to dig myself out and find my voice.
Sylvia Plath
My voice? Where did it go? After a year of having my writing taken apart, I've started to whisper.
We've spent a year working on our writing, and I struggle to advance when I still don't know what I'm doing wrong and what I'm doing right. I should be screaming eloquently in my own voice at this point, but I seem to be choking on my own words.
While one person may love my metaphors and smile at my similes, another will pull out a red pen and tell me to revise my work.
There are also the conflicting rules of journalism. While broadcast journalism encourages a cheesy play on words, magazine writing shakes its big wordy head in dissaproval.
I want to advance in my writing, to dig deeper, to touch upon more of my thoughts and to burn up the page with my honesty.
But with two essays, two feature stories and my own writing under my belt, I'm starting to feel burried.
I've got to dig myself out and find my voice.
And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Sylvia Plath
posted by Gillian Young at 5:50 AM
4 Comments:
You give me the courage to go out there and try too...
I'm much too wordy and have always needed to rein myself (and my words!) in... It was only ever an asset in certain expository writing assignments, but overall I know it's overbearing. Oh well, that's me -- never easy to change.
You "scream" and whisper most eloquently on this blog... to me, a lot of journalism is cheesy, and that's why I fled from the program at Ry. Your writing is so much more.
I have always thought that your 'voice' is inherent in your writing on this blog.
I am shocked. Shocked! that you would receive such criticism. The more I think about, I guess that might be the point of school... But still, I feel offended. I come to your website (aside from the photography), not because of what you say but also the way you say it. You are very, very talented. I do think it's fair for teachers to dish out the criticism and challenge you; but in the same breadth they should also have a duty to inspire and to recognize that they themselves may be constrained by their own paradigms. You should have the confidence, that your style is unique, effective and enticing and your real problem will be deciding what you wish to convey to your reader.
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