My Blogging Voice

Photo by Roberto Kaplan

Today's post is a NaBloPoMo* prompt with the following questions, "Do you feel you have found your voice on your blog? What techniques have you tried to develop your voice in your writing? What are some characteristics of your personality in your writing?"

But before I answer that question, let me clarify one you might have (for me): What is NaBloPoMo in the first place? I didn’t know – actually forgot – what it referred to even though I've mentioned and tagged on the past few days of blogging.

NaBloPoMo is a partial acronym National Blog Posting Month. It's all about writing a blog post each day (similar to Ultra Blog Challenge and Ultimate Blog Challenge, the latter the first one I joined), this one specifically for the month of November. It also happens to be National Novel Writing Month as well; however, I believe I am not meant to be a novel writer, not yet anyway! Never say never as you never know! ;).

I began my blog based on a vision that came from God/Spirit (whatever you prefer to call it by) early in the morning a number of years ago. My first two posts in particular are specifically tailored to this: see my first, "Call to Action" http://xpressyouressence.blogspot.ca/2010/07/call-to-action.html and "Why Me? Why this Choir?" http://xpressyouressence.blogspot.ca/2010/07/why-me-why-this-choir.html in which I felt inspired to initiate an alternative choir for children/youth.

My sense was that people would want to look me up, check up on me in fact. Thus, I figured a blog post – not a website at the time as I wouldn’t know what to put on that! – would e sufficient enough.

And besides, I love to write, creative writing that is. My blog would therefore kill two birds with one stone – don’t care for that idiom too much – in fulfilling its purpose.

I was actually told by some readers earlier on or in the mid-part of my blog that they felt I did have a unique voice and actually not sure exactly what they mean by that. However, I think more importantly, it’s important that I find my voice simply by writing in whatever way and style I choose. (And my skewed photo is purposely placed sideways to give it some personality - I'm being cheeky - and besides, I'm close to the midnight deadline!)

I know I have a writing style as some of you have faithful readers may notice. It may seem or sound weird, but I love certain punctuation marks which creates a certain flavour or style if you will. Recently, I added bolding for emphasis of key words or phrases for example.

And I also love to use photos, my own or others I know preferably as going through a maze of copyrighted pictures or paying for photos do not interest me much at all. Besides, it also makes for a more personable style, don’t you think?

Other than that, I think I sometimes like to experiment and have done occasionally, though possibly rarely, more so in terms of topics.

The only that comes to mind is when I attempted writing a fiction piece to be posted on Vinodini Iyer, a blogging friend’s site at http://vinodinii.blogspot.ca/2014_08_01_archive.html

Incidentally, we became blogging friends as a result of me reading and admiring her creative and unusually twisted-at-times tales. And in turn, she became a guest blogger on my site at http://xpressyouressence.blogspot.ca/2014/09/no-i-do-not-speak-indian.html. (I highly recommend her in her writing of fictitious stories; however, she also attempted to go outside the box and write more in my style. We essentially reversed writing styles - me from nonfiction to fiction and vice versa for Vinodini.)

So essentially, I would say, I guess I do have a blogging voice if it means my own unique style.

What do you think: do you think I do? Not that it matters per se, though I’d be curious to receive your feedback on what you think it is. How would you describe it. Thanks!

(And I thought I had nothing or at least not much to say about this!)

I am linking this to NaBloPoMo, Write Tribe, and Ultra Blog Challenge.

Poetry: Healing AND Delicious!

WOW! An explosion of monolithic proportions!

Those are the exact words I got intuitively as I took my first bite out of a creamy (ganache?) brownie that a work colleague made and brought in last week.

As soon as I received those words, I thought that it was a great line for a poem. I very often only get snippets, literally a line or two, sometimes even a few words that I sense is a poem or is the beginning (line) of a poem.

For example, after drafting this posting and washing my three-or-four-day pile of dishes (due to this daily blog challenge, ahem), I got these lines out of the blue: "disdain of dishes" while washing them, and "elixir of life." (And I wouldn't normally use the words "disdain" nor "elixir." By the way, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elixir_of_life as you may find it a rather interesting read.

And synchronistically amusing to me, a day or two later, someone used those exact words, "elixir of life." I forget the conversation, but it was like a "doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo..."" moment! Think of that in terms of the opening theme music from Twilight Zone by Rod Serling:



Hey, wait a minute?! Who said a poem can't be one line, I mean one verse? I've read a few poems by Rumi and Hafiz for instance that were one-liners if I understand correctly: "O wondrous creatures, by what strange miracle do you so often not smile?" Supposedly this is considered a quote by Hafiz. I say, why can't it be a poem: a one-liner poem?

There are types of poems that are only a few lines in length. And besides, I read a few blog posts recently where a story is told in only five sentences, imagine that! So why not a poem that is only one verse? I am a 'rebel' after all preferring to colour outside the lines. No, not in a rebelliously, angry, war-like, disastrous kind of way. That is not me at all, well, except for certain issues in the world that push my buttons.

Oh wait, that's another story or rather blog post! Ah, see where inspiration can come from? It can come as I think and/or type words on this page, I mean computer.

So here goes everything or nothing ... sometimes I like to challenge myself as I prefer to write poems when they come to me, not 'forced' out of me (similar to how I feel about writing by the way!)

WOW! An explosion of monolithic proportions
this orgasmic sensation on my tongue
delights my lips, my mouth, my throat, my tummy
hmmmmmmmm, yum, yum, yum

Ok, that was a short poem of whatever kind. My on-the-spot version.

Then a little later, I changed it slightly to read as follows:

WOW! An explosion of monolithic proportions
this orgasmic sensation on my tongue,
my lips, my mouth, my throat, my tummy
delights me
hmmmmmmmm, yum, yum, yum

Do you like to read and/or write poetry? What do you like to read and/or write about? Do you have a favourite poem and/or a favourite poet? If you write them, do you have a particular style? How do you get inspired or where do you get your inspiration from? I know, I know...so many questions! I'm a curious lot, what can I say. I like to learn, even from you the reader! ;)