PhD Journey #10: Where is my writers voice?
Here I return back to my teenage years and consider the social influences that were present in my life as I search to find my writer's voice.
Dear friends, thanks for being here and reading,
In these last few weeks, the intensity of my PhD bubble paired with life demands has intensified things for me, the only way I know how to release it is writing my journal, for two reasons, one to release the intense madness, the second reason is so I can return to this and understand my process.
I thought I had a voice, then I didn’t and now I am questioning absolutely everything about my capability to string two words together!
How am I going to separate my voice from others?
In my research, in my storytelling?
How do I find it?
Why is it hiding?
The type of voice that sheds the good girl image with a deep powerful roar, the voice of an inner lion that set me on this soulful journey of self-discovery in the first place.
Where the hell is she!
My PhD bubble is like a high-pressure pot, the one with a blow your steam off whistle on top with a delicious goulash inside that is steaming and can’t get out. Except my whistle is broken. My emotions are intense bubbling like hot blood in my veins and shutting off my brain with no escape.
I tap into my high school years memory. On the outside, a culture of young girly teens that wanted to feel pretty and desired like the women on the big screens, excitement in exchanging dieting tips of not consuming any calories and excessive exercise were rewarded with looks from cute boy. I was too shy to talk to boys; I had never had boys as friends. The comments from popular girls that continue to haunt me. The kind of experiences that were funny back then, like skipping meals, throwing away lunches in the rubbish bin and escaping to the bathroom after a hearty meal, which surely contributed to my hunger war with food.
Inside, I was bursting out screaming, anything just to fit it, fitting in nowhere, belonging to no one. High school turned everything into a stage show, I was lucky I had blonde long hair, with glamours glitter sprinkled through it, a bold red lip stick and smoky eyes, my costume barely covered anything, the playful confidence and controlled expressive moves performed in a slow and deliberate way, filled with teasing gestures, that are jaw dropping and leave the boys tongue-tied, let’s use this to build audience anticipation.
High hills I can no longer walk it let alone dance in that made my legs look like dancing poles. The kind of performance our calligrapher created that parents drop their jaws in disbelieve wanting to cover their good girls. A real-life fantasy that played out in conviction and motion in the name of the arts.
It was reframed as empowerment by our dance teacher performing a story on the stage, sounds like a lot of bollocks to me now, with my parent lens. Let’s throw away girls’ brains and deep thinking, bring in the black velvet lace and wrap it around them for entertainment.
Who was it really for? How did it influence me and the company I keep?
I wonder if that is why I love burlesque so much, is this where that influence came from, in my teenage years. Created within school and reinformed by music and movie pop culture.
How much of this is really me?
Is it my ‘love’ or interest or was it imposed on me?
It certainly influenced me in some way and confused my role as a woman that I was becoming, who was I pleasing? Or is this a women’s role in society? To please and tease.
Leaving my teenage self to look, act and be perceived in a way that is physically desirable and adult-like in a world I was completely naive to, I played along like a character in the show. I didn’t know any better because no one told me.
How the hell did this happen to me?
Does my writers voice live within her, my teenage self, manipulated by society?
I am not sure if this voice feels like me.
Where else could she be.
Somewhere safe hiding.
Striding.
Deep within.
On a closing fieldnote, I am searching for my writer’s voice that belongs to me, that I can recognise, that feels like me. This influence around me have created this pressure, confusion, and self-doubt, especially during times like high school when identity is still forming. My sense of self isn’t built in isolation, it is influenced by the voices, values, and standards that I am surround. There is no one answer or one truth, for me finding my voice is a journey, a process and engaging in my research is forcing me to confront this now.
Acknowledgement
As I explore my writers voice, it feels like of late, I have been receiving signs from Substack community, it is like they algorithm is spying on me, this makes me feel less alone in this journey, more exposed and vulnerable to technology. The positive out of this is that I am so grateful to these writers;
Thank you to dearest Esmari who encouraged poetry, and her written words feel so soothing while there is madness in my head, Gathering the Pieces of Me
Thank you, Lola who deepened my reflection through her exploration of self-doubt and joy, reading it made me feel less alone, HealinLayers
Thank you to Sara Mani for sharing curiosity within me as a researcher and our endless ways of questioning the world, the social influences that surround us and how they influence us. Normalising the emotional labour that a PhD and my research topic itself has irrupted within me.
Thank you to Eva Solen who beautifully described the social construction of her social influences in her life through her writing. This description made me reflect on my own writing and how I can improve it, to feel less academic, less researchy (that’s not a word but it fits) and more like the perfectly imperfect me.
Continue reading…
Your writer‘s voice is the voice in your head.
No more, no less.
Write it, trace it, draw it, record it, voice it, scream it — it's all the same. Different mediums, different ways.
As a certified Gen Z, I am required to apologize for my opinion. I’m about to go outside and try to get this dog to stop screaming from the firecrackers going off!
I feel like everyone on here has given better answers than I have.
It’s not sure what I can add. The article itself is very well written but there is so much to unpack in it. First, the standout somewhat irony to it is you are writing in your own voice as you contemporaneously ask where it is? So that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’ve read many articles like this - Healinlayers wrote on too some time back and I commented a lot on that. I’ve been writing for 20+ years now - all of it for the first 20 years to myself and I’ve never been in a situation where I feel I can’t find my voice to write - for me it’s been a case of no idea what voice is going to come out 😂 - so to me when I read this article it just comes across as a massive overthinking problem and a search for answers way back in life that don’t really matter (IMO) - it’s not reflective of who you are today nor does it influence your voice now. I hope that makes sense. In no way is this to dismiss the way you are feeling because it is clearly important and genuine. So it matters. My point I guess is why does it matter what the schoolgirls reason for acting as she did matter? It’s too multi layered with so many different factors that aren’t at play today.