Kooky Babble #1: Finding Your Voice

Kooky Babble is a new monthly feature that I'm still working out the kinks to. It's rather spontaneous, and I think it will be exactly as it's called - Kooky Babble. I'll talk about whatever suits the blog and me at the moment. I'm feeling spontaneous and want to reject conformity. My blog, my rules. But if you don't like it, don't worry, it's only once a month :) check back for more details later.

Anyone that is a blogger knows what 'finding your voice' is. We have to learn how to write. You would think after two decades of being taught we'd be pretty good at writing, right? But there are so many kinds of writing. For example:

Expressive or Creative Writing

Creative writing - this includes novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, (long?) stories, poems, and anything of the like.

Newswriting/Journalism - like newspapers and online news stories. I would probably put a lot of blogs under this category. Not necessarily to give the latest updates like CNN or whatever, but because blogs tend to be journals of information for one subject or another.

Screenwriting - screenplays, for movies, plays, one-man acts, the lot

English Class Writing Types

Essay writing - we should all know this from English. I've had to do a lot of these recently

Expository writing - used to inform or explain, you normally will find this in textbooks

Descriptive writing - I like to call this the 'I know but don't name' kind of writing. We all use it when describing things, like that pretty yellow flower with its gracefully arched petals (can petals be graceful?) and vibrant green stem. In English class they tend to name everything (humans do anyways, I mean, have you seen how many names there are for clouds?) like with metaphors and onomatopoeia. I don' like naming things. Not things that come natural to me. Teachers, unfortunately, don't really care. You also find descriptive writing in novels and other forms of creative writing. This is more of a style than a type of writing.

Narrative writing - another style, rather type, that you find in creative writing for novels and such

Persuasive writing - you're persuading someone (in an essay, usually) of your point of view on a matter. I suppose you could find this in debates too. I don't think I've ever used this outside of English class, though I have used it very recently.

Why It Matters

So what kind of writing do people use on blogs? That all depends on the blogs' content and subject matter. For example, I regularly visit Chelsea Queen - Nail Artist. I love having my nails look good (one of the few really girly things about me) and head over to her blog once a week to get inspiration for some nail art for that week.

It's not a fiction blog. She posts tutorials and her own nail art ideas. Occasionally she creates nail art based off of books (super cool idea, btw). My point being, she's informative. She's teaching us something. Okay, so it may not be life-saving (as I'm certain knowing the difference between verbs and nouns is) but you're still learning something that may not matter to everyone but that matters to you.

The biggest reason you need to be able to find your voice? So that you can be heard. If you lose your voice and you just become a murmur, no one will hear you over the roar of the crowd. You need to be loud and you need to find your inner song that your going to share with the world. Or don't share it with the world. That is up to you. But without your voice, you won't get very far blogging or writing, and you certainly won't get very far in life.

I think my blog is definitely a form of journalism. I have features, I do reviews, and yes, I do update you guys on book-related news that I hear around the blogosphere and in my life. Now that we've established what my blog is, let me tell you how I found my writing voice on The Kooky Bookworm.

My Voice

I don't know how many of you were around at the creation of the Kooky Bookworm, but if you were you would know my reviews were stilted and awkward. I was writing reviews the way I was taught in English class. People really weren't taken to them, so I tried something else.

I tried just speaking my mind about a book. And while that did entice people to read what I thought, it really was nothing more than me spewing my opinions in no particular order. What I've found recently is structure.

If you looks at my newer reviews you will see that they are structured. I give my own synopsis, a brief character analysis, what I liked, what I didn't like, what I thought of the writing, and a summary. I've organized my writing. But my voice shines through. If you read my reviews or even just what you're reading now, you'll see that there is a voice among the jumbled words.

It's incredibly important to know your voice as a writer. And that's what I am. I'm a writer. I may not be writing novels (at least, not this second. I definitely do in my free time), but I'm currently writing, am I not? I also keep a journal. That's three different types of writing, with three alternative writing voices all fighting to be heard. They're incredibly similar, no doubt, but with each style there is a different type of writing voice.

Kooky Babble #1 Explained

So this must seem really random to you. Like I said before, I was feeling spontaneous. And I suppose it's appropriate with NaNoWriMo just days away. How many people actually plan to participate? I can't wait. I've been planning for this. I really want to begin writing. But I'm biding my time, waiting for the moment when NaNoWriMo begins and my story can launch off of the ground.

As I was saying, before I got distracted by the prospects of NaNoWriMo, this was rather spontaneous, and I think I'll make it a monthly feature. I'm a little bit kooky, after all, I may as well have a feature that is just about kooky babble. It would be embracing spontaneity (which I really want to do after having just read J.A. Redmerski's, The Edge of Never, great book).

Spontaneity + feature + kookiness = a crazy mess. Who knows, though? Maybe it will be a good one. I've wanted to start a feature for a while now but couldn't think of anything. I thought maybe I could do it on travel or baking but I didn't like those ideas. I like the Kooky Babble. It means I can do whatever I want and not conform to the standards of a feature. But hopefully this was entertaining?

Let me know what you think in the comments! Feedback is always appreciated :)

Happy reading!