Voice

Voice

A writer’s voice is shared through pen and paper, or by fingers to screen. Voice can take many forms. It can relay a variety of emotions such as the sadness of losing a friend, the euphoria of success in an endeavor, the pride of a goal reached, the flush of blossoming love. Voice can be yours or someone else’s. It can recall history, exemplify the present and predict the future. It can share what’s real and what’s imagined. Voice is a powerful tool. 

Through writing, I share my many voices. What drives my writing is my imagination and memories. Though I write for myself, I enjoy sharing the thoughts that I have with others. I enjoy opening a part of me so others understand the person I am. A goal I have is to someday share my writing voice in publication. To that end, I participate in a number of writing groups; I’ve created a blog online where I post all my writing; and I share on social media, in the hopes of getting a broader readership and be noticed. 

I have another “voice”. It’s the more obvious one, my physical voice. Through that, I tell stories and sing songs. My story voice can do all the same things as my written voice. Using it takes more practice. And finding an audience is more difficult. What makes my oral voice more powerful, to me, is that when performing I get immediate feedback from my listeners. I get to see the faces and reactions of those listening to my words and even get verbal feedback as audiences participate in my tellings and talk to me afterward. I can adapt my voice to those reactions increasing its power. Alas, I don’t get to do that very often. There are limited opportunities to share my oral voice.As I said, I write for myself, so getting other people to hear my written voice is a bonus rather than a necessity. However, you can’t storytell without an audience. It doesn’t have to be a group of listeners; you only need one other being. But there must be someone who hears your story. I have had some of my audio storytelling picked up by Story podcasts and I have also posted some videos of me singing and telling stories on Youtube. I do participate in online virtual storytelling meetings, where my voice is shared with others as well as in a local storytelling group monthly. Getting hired to perform and finding those others requires a lot of work. 

When asked for this writing piece to write about what thoughts have been going on in my head, I looked back at my “Last Thoughts” notebook* and saw that “voice” was high on the frequency list. The recent reason is that I feel that I’m losing my physical voice. There are days when I can hear my voice being hoarse, though I don’t feel any different and not everyone notices. My doctor and ENT are treating it as acid reflux. Whether or not the medications are working vary from day-to-day. The concern is for my storytelling/singing voice. It’s one thing to speak in a monotone and another to tell with the power of your telling voice. The same goes for singing. My writing voice works without the oral part, someone else can always read my writing. Telling, however, needs a flexible voice, an emotional voice, a loud, soft, and musical voice to reach my listeners.  So it’s been on my mind.

I’m not too concerned yet, but it is not out of thought. I still have a voice. It speaks to others through my writing and through my songs and stories. It shares with the world the person I was, the one I am, and the one I hope to be. It’s evolving as I tell and write more often; as I create my worlds of reality and fantasy, all the wonders created from my imagination, of the adventures I partake in and my characters live in. It shares with you – me.  It is after all…my “voice”.