What I've Been Reading Lately

• Hemingway
• Salinger
• Wallace (David Foster)
• Miranda July

How did these writers develop such a distinct and interesting voice? What I love about all of them is that they are so damn recognizable; any paragraph, any sentence of theirs just reeks of them. How do they do it?

Where does one get their own narrative voice? Simply by practice? Or are some people born with one and don't have to work at it at all? That seems unlikely, as natural as it seems to come to some people. I want my narrative voice to be:

• associative
• quirky
• honest/transparent
• candid
• unorthodox

I realize those words are not really going out on a limb - that is, I suppose many writers with different ideas of what they want their voice to be might use those same adjectives. I will try to refine my list, and maybe by doing so I will find my voice.

(Incidentally, that list applies to July and Wallace, and they both have VERY different voices.)

Maybe when I find my voice, that is how I will know I have succeeded.