A couple of weeks ago, I did a little experiment for the writers in my Writer’s Group Coaching Programme.
I had talked about ‘write like you talk’ and I wanted to show the group what I meant.
There was also something I was curious about for myself. I’d learned to write like I talk a couple of years ago and I wondered whether I do that now or whether I just thought I did.
I recorded a conversation with one of the group and transcribed it.
Here is a short section of the conversation:
“It’s like, I used to have so much self-judgement, self-criticism, berate myself for the smallest things. I had massive expectations of myself that I could never ever achieve. And I didn’t even know I was doing that. That I’d set the bar so high, so high that I couldn’t possibly achieve it and then beat myself up for not achieving it. I’d get close sometimes but you’re never ever going to reach that bar, and then you beat yourself up for it, so what’s happened for me, is that when I catch myself with those expectations of myself, because they’ve not disappeared, I’m kinder to myself. I don’t live in that judgment and criticism of myself all the time anywhere near as much as I used to and I think what I didn’t realise is just how much I did live in that self-judgment and self-criticism. But coming from a place that is much kinder, being much kinder to myself, knowing that all that judgment and criticism is not real anyway, it just makes my life, my internal life a whole lot easier.”
Believe it or not the conversation was profound and interesting, but in print it looks like a ramble. I found that I repeat myself… a lot, and I leave a lot of sentences hanging in mid-air and I go around the houses. When I first started writing like I talk, this is what my writing looked like too!
I think anyone would agree, that I wouldn’t want to publish this, well not if I want the reader to stay interested in what I had to say next!
What the experiment highlighted is the importance of editing.
What many people don’t realise when they first start on their journey to write, is that the first draft is always just that, a first draft. It’s very unusual to write something that is crafted well enough to publish straight away. Ask any famous author and all of them will tell you how important it is to edit your work, and how much time they spend on it!
So here is an edited version of the section above:
“I used to have so much self-judgement and self-criticism, I would berate myself for the smallest things. I had massive expectations of myself that I could never achieve. And I didn’t know I was doing that. I’d set the standard so high, then beat myself up because I hadn’t got there. No matter how close I got to the bar I was never going to reach it. Those expectations haven’t disappeared, but now I see them for what they are and I’m kinder to myself.
It’s not until now, when I look back, that I realise how much I lived in self-judgment and self-criticism and how much that distorted my life. Now I know that all that thinking is not real, I don’t make it the centre of my attention and that makes my life, my internal life, a whole lot easier.”
This has had a very simple edit. You will notice that it’s shorter. I’ve taken about forty words out of it. It still sounds like my voice, but it is tighter. I’ve taken out the repetition and some of the words that we say, that don’t add anything, like ‘like’ and ‘just’ and ‘even’ and “ever”.
This is good news because when we write, we don’t need to worry about how it comes out, whether it’s good enough, whether anyone will want to read it, because we know that we will edit it before anyone else gets to set eyes on it.
You might also notice that I’ve not added words to make it sound more intelligent. For example, if I wanted to sound more ‘professional’ I might have written something like:
‘In the present moment, when I contemplate and reflect on the words and deeds of my past life experience, I have the profoundly deep realization that I inhabited a world of self-judgement.’
For me the simplicity of the words that I use when I talk, resonates more with the reader and I hope that maybe now you would like to hear more of what I have to say.
This is a very simple example, designed to emphasise that our own voice is more powerful than most people realise. I often think my writing is mundane, only to receive great feedback, that is true for a lot of people.
In answer to my own question, I realised that whilst I don’t write exactly how I talk, my voice is now loud and clear in my work.
I wouldn’t write a whole book in this way, that would be like an artist who uses only black and white in his paintings, it could be a great painting, but most people want more colour in their art. I would add tonal dynamics to give the reader a range of experiences as they read, but my voice is the seam that runs through the whole thing, like a thread that keeps it stitched together.
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