Re: becoming oneself
Malcolm Lawrence (malcolm@wolfenet.com)
Fri, 16 Jan 1998 20:21:37 -0800
Brendan McKennedy wrote:
> On the other hand, I think my writer's
> "Voice" is as much a compilation of traits I've abosrbed from
> other writers as it is exclusively my own voice. Do you other
> writers here find that to be true?
Oh yeah, style and technique are elusive things. Unless one is completely
preoccupied with one and only one artist, every other voice you've been
exposed to, interested in, studied, and obsessed upon gradually piles up
and dissolves into each other until they become your own singular
distinctive voice. And it doesn't have to just be the voices of the
particular medium or discipline one is working in either. If I were cut
down like a tree you'd be able to find the rings of everyone from Ingmar
Bergman and Somerset Maugham to Nick Drake and Andy Warhol. It's really
not something you can control, fortunately. To quote Flannery O'Connor:
"Everything that rises must converge."