I really don\u2019t think of myself as a writer. I\u2019ve written a bunch of books, but that doesn\u2019t make me writer. It just means I type a lot. Writing is\u00a0different. I\u00a0know\u00a0good writers, and they intimidate me.\u00a0They think about what\u00a0they\u00a0are going to say, organize their thoughts, use\u00a0adjectives, and spell-check, all the things I don\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n Writing is not my joy and solace. It is more like my 9th grade\u00a0science\u00a0teacher, with his arms crossed standing behind me watching me use the cat as a\u00a0ventriloquist\u00a0dummy instead of dissecting it. I can\u00a0feel\u00a0<\/em>his presence and I am uncomfortable. I know I\u2019ve been caught, but if I avoid eye contact, maybe he\u2019ll go away.<\/p>\n Anyway, despite myself I\u2019ve picked up a few things over\u00a0the\u00a0years, and one recent insight has\u00a0proved helpful: I\u2019ve learned to\u00a0recognize the voices inside of me. Not the crazy kind that told me to buy a Ford Pinto in high school and later told me to go to graduate school, but the voices of an audience in my brain bearing down on me,\u00a0watching\u00a0me, daring me\u2013DARING me\u2013to write something coherent.\u00a0My voices have a bit of an edge.<\/p>\n About a year ago, without having been conscious of it before, I came to see that I had always been writing to an audience buried deep in my soul made up of three voices.<\/p>\n This phantom audience began to take up\u00a0residence\u00a0deep inside me at a very young age. I grew up in a home where one parent tended to dominate a room with monologs\u2013long ones\u201345 minutes sentences, never noticing that those trapped in the room where getting\u00a0agitated\u00a0and bored by topics that interested no one but the speaker.<\/p>\n I only recently became\u00a0conscious of these memories invading my writing\u2013at a time in my life when I was doing a ton of writing\u2014books, book proposals, essays, articles, and especially blog posts. All that typing seems to have been a form of unintended journaling that brought\u00a0things\u00a0to the surface. When I write (and speak), I have a deep reflex not<\/em> to produce those feelings in others that were produced in me.<\/p>\n In retrospect, it seems I have\u00a0always\u00a0put a lot of energy into my writing to try to counter each of these voices.<\/p>\n This is where these edgy voices have led me. It wasn\u2019t planned and I\u2019m not saying I pull it off, but being conscious of these voices is part of my own transition from typing a lot to maybe writing a little. I guess what I\u2019ve learned\u2013as corny as it sounds\u2013is that writers are in touch with themselves. Otherwise, they\u2019re just typing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thebiblefornormalpeople.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/writer.jpeg?ssl=1\" "\\"writer\\"")
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