It would be easier to write if you focused on how your voice is unique to you. It’s a cliche, I know. But it’s a cliche because it is true. Lies don’t become cliches.
Your voice has been crafted by every experience you’ve ever had–all those repressed moments of disappointment, every experience that lifted your heart into your throat, all the pain that squashed your joy–everything that is yours is also no one else’s. No one could have had, and no one else has had, your life.
Write as only you can. If you write like others, you will be ignored, and rightfully so. I can pick up hundreds of books in any bookstore where authors are trying to write like someone else.
Can’t you find your voice? Here’s an exercise I discovered years ago: imagine you have one chance to speak to a large crowd gathered to meet you. One sentence is all you’ve got. After that sentence, the crowd will decide to stay for one more sentence, or to leave. Over and over again.
If you waste the chance trying to sound like someone else, they’ll find someone else. But sound like yourself, put effort into the opportunity to have their attention focused just on you, and you’ll keep them.
Now go write.
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