Finding My Voice

I’m still pretty new to this blogging thing, but I think I’m slowly starting to get the hang of it. However, it’s definitely been a process and part of the struggle has been this concept of “finding my voice,” which is what this entire post is going to be about.

Although actually, the use of the word “finding” is a bit misleading, because I’ve always had a voice, and a very distinctive one at that. I’m loud, opinionated, sassy, sarcastic, and occasionally too silly when things should be serious. I’m the type of person that you hear from another room and immediately think, “yep, that’s Taylor.” So my voice definitely doesn’t need to be found – it’s already out there.

Blogging kind of complicated that a little bit though. I started this blog with the idea that I’d be up-front and blunt about everything, because that’s just who I am as a person. But the problem with growing a blog is that you constantly want to take cues from people whose blogs are successful. So you read their work, and you start trying to learn from them and add in little tidbits and features of their writing into your own. This can be great at times, but it can also be dangerous to your identity as a writer. My voice is one that’s entirely my own, but it can get muddled when I’m trying to incorporate other people’s writing styles into my own.

I saw it happen, really. There’s a number of posts that I wrote, that I look at now and feel as if they’re really disingenuous. They’re good writing, and I definitely don’t regret posting them or any of the content I wrote, but they’re not me. The “me” that writes posts includes sassy comments about almost dying while making a cooler and is straightforward enough to tell you that I tagged a picture on Instagram as the Cliffs of Moher when in reality it was just some random smaller cliffs because fog. I’m getting closer and closer to discovering my blogging voice, and moments like that make me feel like I’m hitting the mark.

It’s tempting to put up the front that I live some sort of perfect life for the sake of making my blog more desirable or my experiences more envious, but in reality I only left my apartment twice yesterday (both of which were for coffee) and I spent 30 minutes this morning watching corgi videos on Instagram when I probably should’ve been studying for the LSAT. I have my life together a lot of the time, but sometimes I don’t, and that’s ok. I can still give tips on writing good essays or share some of my favorite outfits without being some sort of perfect Barbie doll who is 100% productive and put together at all hours.

So, there’s that. I’m working on getting my voice back and being the most genuine version of myself as I can on this blog. That person is sassy and weird and constantly spouting something about feminism and #girlpower, and to be fair, she’s pretty awesome.

(I’m also the type of person that’s not afraid to occasionally brag about myself, weird quirks and all, because that’s what female empowerment is anyways and I am all about that.)

xo, Taylor