Sotto Voce: Finding Your Voice
This was a panel at #Nerdcon 2016.
Rives (pronounced Reeves) (Moderator), Raghav Mehta, Wesley Chu, Patricia Wheeler, Rachel Kann, Sandeep Parikh
"Finding your voice is overrated. When you're trying to be funny, you're your least funny" — paragrpahsed from Wesley Chu
"If you're focusing on finding a voice, it's not organic" — Wesley Chu
Wesley: If you're saying "I want to be a quirky singer, you're already doing it wrong".
Wesley: "When you do martial arts, you don't say I want by style to be the guy who kicks a lot. You do what comes naturally, and that becomes your style."
Wesley: This panel is meaningless. If you're seeking voice you're trying too hard. Give up, give up. Let the voice flow through you.
Rachel Kann:
I can say apple a million times but never is an apple going to fall out of my mouth.
And with bigger ideas than apples it's not going to happen.
And instead of being intimidated by words as the tools we use to tell stories, see them as tools.
Voice will come out in the editing process.
If you hate rewriting and editing you're going to be unhappy.
Because most of editing is rewriting and editing.
Note: I wonder if I meant to write "Most of writing is rewriting and editing".
Rachel continues:
Finding your voice is done by saying things aloud. You're going to find things that aren't true because you don't want them read aloud, because either you've hit on something that's super vulnerable and super raw and needs to be said, or you found the BS and you need to find the...
Note: I lost the thread here
... Keep trying to feel back your truth, is it blue or is it turquoise
Sandeep suggests Improv. You don't have time to think, you aren't thinking. You're at your best when you're just expressing and that changed my worldview. Don't think, just do.
The rules of improv are the rules of good conversation and good ... in life.
Building a scene and saying yes and facing your partner.
I use these rules all the time.
At a date at a job interview, I'm always improvising.
I'm improvising right now!
Wesley: The first draft is a turd no matter what you think. Editing is the process of shining that turd.
==Starting is easy. Anybody can start writing a good book.
Finishing is the hard part.
Rachel: Leonard Cohen took 5 years to write the song Hallelujah.
And when I read that, it struck a chord with me.
Raghay: A secret chord?
Rives: Dylan wrote Rolling Stone in an afternoon.
Rachel: Both ways do happen, but sometimes something does pop out and it's fully formed and it's not that there's just one way.
Sandeep: That's a function of you putting time in. If that genius song comes out it's because you've been putting in that time writing songs all morning, all month, and the good one may come out in an afternoon, but (etc.)
Rives: I'm a fan of this. Sometimes good ideas happen in 45 minutes on a motorcycle ride, other times I'm riding my motorcycle and I'm like why can't I have an idea right now?
Wesley: To be pragmatic, a mistake that amateur artists (I don't like calling people artists) make is that people want to work when they're inspired. And that's a mistake. Work breeds work. You can wait a long time for inspiration, but it's not coming!
I'm a full time author, I'm contractually obligated to be creative. I hate that I'm obligated to work even when I don't want to.
Putting in the crappy work will inspire you to do the good work. I don't know where I'm going with this. Just do the work.
Sandeep: (says something similar, about doing the work to get to the good work)
Your mind is working against you. It wants the quick serotonin boost from checking off any mundane task, you're telling your brain you've accomplished things. You need to force your brain not to clean your dishes, to avoid the "yeah, I completed something" feeling, even if it means staring at a blank page for 90 minutes just to do it. Go watch Open Mind by John Cleese on Youtube. (see notes here) It's just a matter of getting there via discipline.
note: I couldn't find a video by that title, but I think this might be the one referred to
Inspiration
Moderator: Give me an anecdote about inspiration:
Sandeep: Booze.
Sandeep: My roommate got a care package and it was an NES with the original Zelda golden cartridge, so we got a 30 pack of Coors original, and he said he can beat it in 45 minutes. I didn't believe him because it took me 6 stinking minutes
I assume I meant to write months? Update: Not a mistake, I had some extension on my computer that replaced years (I think) with minutes.
But he knew literally all of it, and as I'm watching it and getting wasted and I just kept thinking about living in this world and how ridiculous it is. You're given a wooden sword, and I want to see a regular guy stuck in this world. So I wrote this sketch and I wrote it while he was playing and I spell checked it in the morning and then I thought it was funny and it was a 3 season show on Comedy Central.
He's referring to The Legend of Neil
Finding Your audience
Rachel talks a lot about finding your voice. I don't catch all of it.
- Driving and the subway are great places for inspiration, and water and showering. Good stuff comes with water and with motion
- So many people are talking about wanting to find their voice, and I want do think about what I can offer you
- The specific is universal, and we want to go general and have it relatable to everyone
- Thing about elevator music. It's too general. Everyone likes it, but no one likes it. It's too general, it appeals to no one, not everyone.
- So when you think about your audience, don't make it about everyone. Tell your most specific truth, even the stuff that makes you want to hide. Keep that. You have an obligation to share your experiences because only oyu have them and you can find so much authenticity in there and you don't want to write elevator music.
- Even if you think no one is going to get it, think about the art that you love. Even if it's nothing to do with your life, describing it in your own way.
- You can forget what things are supposed to look like
*I lost her here.
How do I get published
Rives asks this question and everyone objects "Woah that's a different panel"
Rives: Wesley, you haven't talked in a while. Are you contractually deadlined? Do you put it out there if it's done or not?
Wesley: I have a publisher, I do 2 books a year. Contractually I need to publish 300,000 words a year, and it's project management.
I take the art out of it and turn it into a business. I need to write 140,000 word book in the next 6 months, and you get the rough draft in 3-4 months, and you have everyone you know tear it apart and then you give it to your editors. And that's how I eat.
Wesley: There's a lot of sausage aside.
Err, there's a lot of sausage making involved
(laughter)
Editing
Rachel: When you're writing, find all the adverbs. They're the devil. Play mad libs with yourself, and when you have an adverb get rid of the entire thing. Get rid of them and replace them with similes and metaphors and kill them with fire. Replace them with imagery.
Sandeep describes an improv game called New Choice and you have to change the idea.
Sandeep: There's no better time to publish than right now.
Sandeep: Don't find people who want to change you. Put your shit out there. Sorry, your crap. Your sausage. Put your sausage out there.
Wesley: If you just want to get your story out, do it. BUt if you want to become a cog in the machine, then find an agent.
Sandeep: I want to be organic. I want to read this aloud and get it out for me because I'm authentic. I want to get my own story out before I become a cog in the machine.
Trauma
Patricia wheeler comes out on stage to talks about bringing humor to dark things
Share difficult stories about grief, pain, and trauma.
The more we share them, the less stigma surrounds them.
Connection through trauma is healing.
Don't use difficult stories as therapy.
When we share, it needs to be behind us
"one of the ways to reincarnate yourself is to tell your story" --Spalding Gray
Wesley: When you write a book it came take months or years, so I pitch my agent ideas and he tells me what I can make.
Raghav: I don't have an agent and I'm pitching things all the time. I have a friend who's a writer and we edit each others' stuff and call bullshit on each others' stuff and that's important as a new writer.
I realized at this point that I have attributed things to Rachel that were probably said by Raghav
What if you hate your voice?
Rachel: That's impossible. You can't be attracted to an unattractive person. You finding it attractive makes them attractive. Your voice is the same way, I promise. It's like food. You can't like disguising food because it's good.
Sandeep: Just learn to love yourself.
Audience; What if your agent pushes you in a direction and you hate yourself?
Wesley: That's called life. You get to say "fuck that" if you don't agree.
Rives: Stet is your friend.
Rachel suggests cutting 300 pages, "it's fine"
Audience: No one wants to read my story
Raghav: Pay money. Do a writers workshop, They'll let you.
Audience: Are voices real:
Rachel: Your voice changes every minute and you can't keep up with it, why even try? It's a moving target, don't nail it down.
"Art is a process where someone puts something out into the world and other people shit on it" — Wesley, I think