Office Hours: Getting a handle on your voice

What’s New

• Mask mania

  • The mask isn’t just to protect you. It’s to prevent you from unwittingly spreading the virus. Once again people ASYMPTOMATIC SPREAD.

  • This is NOT violating your civil liberties – You are still able to speak, you are still able to pray, you are still able to go about your business.

  • In VA the health department will start issuing citations to businesses who don’t require people to wear masks. (I’m looking Giant Foods)

• Journaling – Started last week – Very cathartic

• Live stream expansion – Streamyard or Restream for streaming to multiple platforms

• Summer Read-along for the Once & Future Series – Inside the Kettle Holler Literary Society

Weekly Topic

• Voice – This is the thing that makes each writer distinct. Agents and editors will tell you that

  • Endless retellings of fairy tales, rewriting classics like Emma into Clueless or Pride and Prejudice into Bridget Jones Diary

  • The Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek and The Giver of Stars – Two books so similar that it has been reasonably argued in many circles that Moyes plagiarized her book Richardson’s book. – What’s different is the author’s voice.

• Recognizing your voice

  • What makes your voice different? Most writers have things that make their voice different from another’s. Even if you are influenced by another author. Dorothy Dunnett is a prime example. Her books The Lymond Chronicles and the House of Niccolo have influenced so many writers. Before Phillipa Gregory or Cassandra Clare, Dunnett is the high priestess of palace intrigue. But she also has one of the most distinctive voices in modern literature. None of those other writers even attempt to sound like her.

  • Compare descriptive passages from The White House compared with The River Maiden

    • Description woven with action

    • Rhythm to the length of the sentences

    • Spare description

    • Included backstory

• Finding Your Voice – How is your voice unique?

  • Exercise from Finding Your Voice – Rewrite a favorite passage from a classic book

What I’m Writing

• Still Book4 – The finale

I would give you a link where you can get your own, but they are out of stock everywhere.

What I’m Reading

• Not much actually, because Book 4

What I’m Watching

• Outer Banks - Netflix

What I’m Crafting

• My garden. – Greenhouse