Finding My Voice

So, most of you know that I wanted to be a writer of some sort when I was younger and my life was full of endless possibilities. Now that I'm older and some of those possibilities have expired, I realize that I will never get paid for writing. Which is...okay. I have other writing projects on the back burner. They're back there though, because there's no instant gratification. With blogging, I can write this thing, hit publish, and I feel some sense of accomplishment. Why? I don't know. I guess because I tend to start things and abandon them or lose interest when they are more difficult than I imagined or I'm not getting the results I want.

Anyway, I haven't written poetry, fiction, or a play in so long that I don't have the chops for it. Writing bullshit about my life is easy. This is what I'm better at writing. Even my musical lyrics, while some are catchy, are trite.

In the condition of quasi-anonymity, it's so easy to spill my guts. My ugly stinky gross guts. You wanna hear about my noxious farts, sure, I'll describe the bouquet. In the Pork Porn Pages blog, there are some insulting descriptions of people. If they ever read that stuff, they would hate me. These blogs are hidden from a lot of people. I always tried to not let my employers know about my blog, in case I wanted to bitch about them. Which was funny with my last job. Other people, oh like one certain food writer, would talk to my employers about how cool it was I wrote a blog. My employers didn't know what she was talking about.

So, anyway. One of my poetry professors told my class that sometimes you have to kill your parents to be able to be truthful in writing. Well, my mom is dead, although she is the one parent who I wouldn't really mind exposing any of my writing to. I mean, in junior high, she read the entire contents of the infamous confiscated notebook. I mean, she read it in my room, out loud to me. Man, I wish I would have had a tape recorder or video camera. That would have been a YouTube hit, even though there was no such thing back then.

But, I gotta say, my dad wouldn't understand any of my writing. He's kinda gone. He doesn't understand what the word "garage" means when I personally write it. It's more difficult to properly communicate with someone when you hate them. I'm not saying my dad always hates me. He's got an interchangeable sliding scale hate list. But, my dad is more the focus of the other personal blog, so I won't dwell on him here. Think happy thoughts. Happy. Happy.

This blog is really meandering along, but it was meant to be about my writing voice vs my speaking voice. My writing voice is elegant and graceful compared to my speaking voice. My whole physical presence lacks confidence and oozes self criticism, doubt and loathing, except for when on stage. I love to play live music. That's kind of different though, I'm always drunk or at least have a good buzz when playing a gig.

But my speaking voice is shrill and screechy and grating. You know how a lot of people hate the sound of their own voice. I'm not the only one who hates my voice. Over the years, people have called me out about my voice.

The drag queen at the local club in college said I have a "squeeky cunt voice." She was doing a drag show, and she made me stand up and speak into the microphone so everyone could hear it.

My dad said, "you sound like birds."

And there was that guy in that club, Manray, in Boston. I met him one time, and I was hammered, obviously. I never "walked" out of a club in Boston, ever. Stumbled, was dragged or carried is more like it. Anyway, a month later, I was ordering tickets on the phone or calling the cable company or something, and the guy asked if I was "my name" that goes to Manray. I said, how did you know? He replied, it's a very unique voice. Yes, very unique.

I hate my voice.

So, I developed this different writing voice. Not just my "writing voice", but also a writing "voice". When I'm reading what I'm writing, that voice that reads the words to me in my head is...nicer, more melifluous. It sucks, because when I'm working on a song, I can hear the voice I want in my head, but I can't execute. At least with music there are effects.

Maybe I could have a vocal processor installed in my throat? Like those people who had tracheostomies? But not a robot voice, a lovely, beautiful voice that everyone will want to listen to. It will be so beautiful that it will be a joy to hear me recite grocery lists, rap sheets, curse words. I will be propositions to do voices for animated movies and cartoons. And if I recite poetry, it will always bring people to tears.