Voice

(Photo Credit: Google Image)

I have a short list of names here that I’d like you to find the common factor among these people (read: one thing they have in common). Simple, right? Okay, let’s go. 

1.     ABBA (Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad)

2.     Jack Black. 

3.     Peter Cetera. 

4.     Morgan Freeman. 

5.     Michael Jackson.

6.     James Earl Jones. 

Have you noticed? Have you spotted that “one thing” they all share in common other than the fact that they’re all somewhat famous media entertainers?

Yes?

Did you say . . . they all have distinctive voices, like I knew you were going to say? Like I knew if you heard any one of these artists’ voice on the radio you’d undoubtedly recognize it, shouting, “Oh, that’s ABBA!” or “Hey, that’s Jack Black!” or “That’s Peter Cetera, Morgan Freeman, Michael Jackson, and James Earl Jones! Wow! How did they get all the most distinctive voices together like they did in We Are the World?”

Remember We Are the World? (If, for any reason, you don’t, please watch this youtube video, provided for your convenience, before reading the rest of the article. Thanks.)

Remember in 1985 when the Billboard #1 single U.S. A. for Africa––We Are the World came out and shook the world with the emotional collective superpower of the most popular 80s American pop singers? Without watching the video, can you honestly know which singer sang what part of the lyric? Maybe. Maybe not. But in the chorus, can you correctly identify any of the distinctive voice that belongs to a specific individual? 

I know you’re thinking, “What kind of stupid question is that? It’s a chorus. Everybody’s voice is blended together. How do you identify anyone’s voice?”

You’re right. You’re right. 

Considering the nature of a chorus, it’s understandable that for a non-singer like me I feel safe to lip-sync in a chorus, to hide my croaking, breathless, off-key voice. To shamelessly, guiltlessly, deliberately turn myself audibly non-existent. 

So, back to the famous song We Are the World, we see that undeniably, even for Michael Jackson and his gloriously distinguished voice it’s difficult to stand out in the crowd.  

It’s the same in writing. 

There’re some gifted writers who possess distinguished literary voices. And here, I have a (somewhat biased version of the) short list: 

1.     First and foremost––Frank McCourt, no doubt. *kowtows* 

2.     Elizabeth Gilbert. *bows*

3.     Anne Lamott. *salutes*

4.     Cheryl Strayed. *applauds*

5.     Mary Karr. *nods*

Sometimes I stumbled upon a piece of personal essay or a blog post and was surprised to detect a portion of the text following similar pattern, or mimicking similar style, of famous writers like Frank McCourt or Elizabeth Gilbert of Anne Lamott or Cheryl Strayed or Mary Karr. Which is fine. Writing is an art of imitation. We all learn from others to improve our own craft. But what I discovered in those essays and articles was inconsistency, meaning, discord in text. They were like various writers shouting out to the reader in different paragraphs, making it read like a literary patchwork. And I wondered what the writer’s original voice sounded like, if he hadn’t accidentally (?) drowned it in the chorus of New York Times bestsellers. Maybe his voice is strikingly captivating but we’ll never know. We won’t get to hear and appreciate and fall in love with it because it’s still buried in the chorus. 

So I bring the questions to you:

Is your writing voice standing tall and strong on its own feet? 

Is your writing voice singing solo, loud and proud, like a lion's ferocious roar? 

My hope is that you will allow your writing voice to be so distinctive and unique––as it is––that when a reader sees a sentence you’ve written, he immediately recognizes, “Aw, that’s my favorite author. I just know.”

Allison

Blog: Allison Hong-Merrill
Facebook: Allison Hong-Merrill
Twitter: @xieshou

Instagram: @jijenmerrill

First Person Lies

I recently read JoLyn Brown’s inspiring post about people writing uplifting messages upon our walls. I want to address the antithesis of her idea, the cruel and pernicious graffiti that sprawls across the consciousness of our minds. We generally refer to it as, ‘negative self-talk.’ But is it always the self that’s talking? Uncovering the genesis of these thoughts can be empowering and life changing.

The Lies and the Damage they Cause

We’re all afflicted with thoughts that depress, discourage, and demean us. Do any of these sound familiar?

I can’t do that

I’m not good enough

I’m not as talented as they are

I’ll never be good at this

I’m just so weak

I’ll never overcome this

Blah, blah, blah.

You could fill 10 additional pages of examples, couldn’t you? Consider how these statements affect us. They stop our forward motion and cause us to doubt ourselves, our abilities, and our ambitions. They attack our very identity and worth. If we believe them, they negatively affect our choices and behavior. If we wallow in them and allow them to marinate in our minds we’re soon reduced to powerless victimhood rather than remaining proactive agents.

The Origin

Where do these destructive thoughts originate? Are they our own thoughts or is someone placing them in our minds? Maybe a bit of both. The answer to this most critical question is weighted with significance. Depending on their source, they are either lies we can have power over, or truth that can help us. The test of authorship can determine validity. Let’s consider three possible sources:

God

He is the easiest being to discount. In the scriptures, has the Lord ever said to someone, “You are such a loser. You can’t do anything right. Give up. You’ll never make it.” Pretty absurd, right? All I read in the scriptures is, ‘Look to God and live, Be of good cheer, I am with you always, Fear not, Let your hearts be comforted, Peace be unto thy soul, Be not troubled.’

Put it to the test. Think of one of those harsh mental declarations and try to reconcile it with God’s character and compassion. Reflect upon your experience with the workings of the Spirit. Ask yourself, “Would the Holy Spirit say this to me?” You can probably feel quite certain that God would not speak such discouraging messages to His beloved child. He’s our greatest cheerleader, not our chief discourager.

Self

The primary reason we may be quick to take ownership of those dark ideas that come into our brain is because they present themselves in the first person form. We are familiar with this pattern of internal dialogue. Everything we say about ourselves in our minds is in the first person. ‘I am hungry. I want to go there. I feel so happy about that.’ We wouldn’t knowingly lie to ourselves. We speak the truth and naturally give great credibility to our perceptions and thoughts. And we know ourselves so well. We feel justified in berating and condemning ourselves. But are our judgements consistent with our true identities?

The Enemy

We all know Satan is our great enemy. He is jealous of us and bent on our destruction. But have you considered exactly how he possesses us, tries us, and torments us? He cannot have power to read our minds but he has been given the ability to place temptations there. He’s certainly smart enough to figure out that if those thoughts entered our head in third person we would detect him immediately as the evil invader he is. So he couches his maleficence in first person to avoid detection and give credibility to the libelous statements. Herein lies the great deception.

Our Power

By recognizing his clever tactics of first person belittling, we can cauterize his power over us. After identifying the lies, I find it most helpful to invite the gentle encouragement of the Holy Spirit to speak truth to my mind. His impressions and communications are always so kind and encouraging. Sometimes it’s a struggle to want to choose the positive. But just learning this one strategy of the enemy has helped me be more aware and be able to make the deliberate choice to shut out the lies.

Women I Admire: My Daughter and Messages on a Wall

I do a series on my personal blog called Women I Admire. After a hard week where I found myself literally embraced and supported by some angel women in my life, I felt sharing this might be appropriate. It's from about two years ago, so forgive the flash back. I've discovered that messages are still being written on my walls, and the ones written this week were no less important than ones from my childhood. God is still there. He loves me and is still very much aware of me and the trials I face. I'm so grateful for the women He sent to me this week in my moment of need.

Several years ago, I was at a Relief Society mid-week activity that my cousin spoke at. She is married to one of my older cousins and actually was one of my Young Women's leaders growing up. She talked about body image and the way we see ourselves. She told us to close our eyes and imagine walking along a road. I imagined the road, long and empty, cutting through an expanse of yellow and orange dust. Then she said to imagine we came to a wall. We can't get around this wall. Our Savior is standing there. He reaches out and writes something on the wall. What does he write?

She never told us what the Savior would write. In my self-destructive way, I'd been harboring feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. Up to that point, I'd only berated myself for falling short of the ideals she'd spoke of. To my surprise, when I imagined what my Savior would write on my wall, it wasn't chastisement.

He wrote, "I Love You."

My baby is three months now. The messages she gets are mostly from me. I try so hard to write "I love you" on her wall. I see another Young Women's leader and hear her voice as she spoke of her four young daughters. "I try to never criticize myself in front of them. I don't want them see themselves like that." Its hard, but that is what I'm trying to do as well.

I recently reconnected with another leader from my teenage years. It got me to thinking about these women God put in my life and the messages they wrote on my walls. I didn't always believe them, but they never gave up.

At girls camp one year, a leader came for only a day. Before she left that night, she sang to us. She wrote "You are a daughter of God." across my wall. I believed it then, but doubts slipped in. Months later, at another event, she sang again. Tears spilled down my face as she looked in my eyes and re-etched her message. "Walk tall, you're a daughter, a child of God."

My leaders wrote other messages.

"You're important." When she tracked me down when I didn't show up to one of my very first young women's activities when I was only twelve.

"I trust you." When she let me watch her babies for the entire summer, five years in row.

"You have something to give." When she asked me to sing a solo, even though I wasn't very good at singing.

"God Loves You." Over and over again. "You are his daughter."

The world was writing their own messages. Messages about how tall I was, how wide I was, the size of my feet, the number of pimples on my face. Messages about the times I failed, lost, or came up short. Messages that screamed across my wall.

But when I came to that imaginary wall all those years later and faced my Savior, the messages that stayed were the messages that mattered. The ones that were the truth.

He wrote, "I love you."

And now the messages of these leaders are being written in my daughter's life. "You are beautiful," I tell her. "I love you." "I want you." The women I admired as a young girl are changing my baby's life.

Others will write across my daughter's wall. Some will try to destroy her with lies. But then she will go to Young Women's. She will go to girls camp. She will meet beautiful women God has placed there just for her. They will tell her the truth. They will re-etch across her wall. I pray between us, we will be enough. I pray that when she reaches her own walls, she will also find her Savior, and, with faith burning in her heart, she will already know what He will write.

When you don't want to revise your memoir

You hang that laundry that your eighteen year old son and sixteen year old daughter could very well hang, if you just ask them. You take extra care to uncrease the wrinkles and hang them just so on the hangers. You wonder where all the hangers in the house go when you buy at least twenty each week.

You ask yourself what your potential ghostwriting clients always tell you, “Why would anyone want to read my story?”

You remind yourself what you tell your clients, “Because it’s there.”

Oh, wait. We are not talking about scaling Mount Everest, though it sure feels like it today. You actually say, “Because if you don’t, no one else will. Or if someone does, they will get your story all wrong.”

You actually start believing your pep talk so you finish the laundry and boot up your computer.

You remember that you already have a cover that needs a memoir. You look at it and get excited all over again.

You look at your draft, the one with the killer opening chapters but unrevised following chapters, and fall into despair because revising everything through seems like an impossible task.

You check Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, MSN News and – goodness, she’s marrying him?

You check your e-mail, which hasn’t changed since ten minutes ago.

You download the latest Scrivener update, when you could very well just stick to Word, nearly crash your computer, panic for one moment because it looks like you might have lost your files. Then you find them.

You get an extra burst of energy revising the document you almost lost. You promise never to take your beloved manuscript for granted. Ever again. Until the next round of self-doubt hits you.

You copy and paste your manuscript into Scrivener and wonder if you will ever get to seriously revising it, or if you are just going to keep deleting paragraph returns.

You finally run out of distractions and excuses.

You revise the dang thing.

Jewel Allen is an award-winning journalist, author, ghostwriter, poet, councilwoman, and mom. Visit her website at www.jewelallen.com.

3-Minute Memories (or the Art of the Anecdote)

I recently went to the Presbyterian Association of Musician's annual Summer Sing.  It was a little longer than a long weekend and consisted of hours of choir rehearsals, the occasional worship service and some swimming in the beautiful Lake Tahoe.

On Friday night, we were invited to the dining hall in Living Waters for hot fudge sundaes and entertainment.  Said entertainment was in the form of our conductors and a few of our fellow singers telling humorous or uplifting anecdotes in three minutes or less.

I'll relate my three favorites and then tell you what I learned about non-fiction from them.

1)  Michelle is a college choir director who toured Germany with her singers.  She has rules for her choir--you can never be without your passport, credit card and itinerary.  This was proved to be a good thing when two of her basses arrived late at a rendezvous and found the bus had left them behind.  Undaunted, they hailed a cab and paid $150 to travel from Berlin to another city.  They knew that they should be at a particular church, but when they reached that destination, the choir was nowhere to be found.  At the moment that they reached the curb, the bus came driving by and the choir and basses collectively got the driver to stop the bus,  They got on the bus just in time to drive...back to Berlin.

2)  Mom was in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and said that one of the greatest frustrations was having no pockets in the choir dresses.  The men could shove phones and wallets into tuxedo pockets at any point.  Well, the women discovered that knee-high nylons could work as utility belts and put anything from their Chapstick to their Blackberry into their nylons.  Karen, Mom's best friend in the choir, was in the middle of a concert one night when her phone started ringing.  The good news was that she had it on vibrate.  It was also soothing to have it buzz against her leg.  For the rest of the tour, people would sign up to call her every fifteen minutes and she would switch it to the other leg during intermission.

3)  Howard's favorite movie is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, starring a dancer named Jane Powell.  He took ballroom dance because of that and one night, he went dancing with college friends.  An older woman asked him for a waltz and he discovered it was Jane Powell, in town for a concert with her co-star from his favorite movie.

I enjoyed all of these recollections and found them to be told in an effective manner.  All of them gave us a key look at a characteristic of the "protagonist."  With Michelle, it was her protectiveness of her students.  With Mom, it was her resourcefulness.  With Howard, it was his respect for classics.

They also put things on familiar footing.  All of us have missed a travel connection, felt uncomfortable in public or found ourselves with a pleasant surprise.

Finally, they did not require much context.  Almost any audience could enjoy the tale without needing to know extensive backstory.

Had I volunteered to participate, I would have told this story:

In 2002, I was a missionary in California, working with immigrants.  My father sent me four dolls to distribute to needy children for Christmas.  The next day, we found out hat the head of household for a family we knew well had just died and all funds for Christmas had to go to medical and funeral expenses.  My missionary companion and I decided immediately to take over for Santa Claus and raided stores for food, candy and presents for the grandmother, daughter and granddaughter.  It wasn't until my companion told me to look for some kind of Barbie that I remembered the four dolls.  Luisa was one of the four to benefit from my father's gift that year.

This tells you about my family's traditions of generosity, shared a common experience of trying to improve a bad situation and only required the audience to know that I was working with the less-fortunate at times.

Enough

Sitting in an empty car, outside the dorms where my oldest child will be living, I remember.

I remember going to bed every single night when the kids were little, filled with regret for the things that happened during the day, filled with longing to be with my children, enjoy them, hug them, now that they were sleeping in bed and it was too late. Sometimes I went to their rooms, watching them sleep, and I mourned missed opportunities. Their upturned faces would flash through my mind as sleep stayed far away, and I would rethink all of my, “just a minutes.” In the dark hours of the night, my earlier impatience seemed ridiculously based. My anger, inconceivable. How could I raise my voice at such innocence? Returning to bed, watching my husband’s sleeping form, I considered his regrets. Surely he had none. He played, he laughed, he guided with love and kindness.

Looking back, I still feel that pain, those missed opportunities, especially now, knowing they are irretrievable. But I also see more than I could during those days. I see tired. I see pregnant. I see many hours on my own during my husband’s law school and employment. I see desperation to prove myself, to become, to serve, to please. Six children in eleven years. I see club feet and eye patches and infant kidney trouble, infections. I see the last one to eat cold dinner, grocery trips with crying children, prying eyes, headaches; I see late nights and early mornings. I see lots of 3:00 AM. I see effort, such great striving, work and intent. I see desire. I see the trenches. I see a pure heart.

And joy. I see lots of fun. I relive memories of parks, and friends, and trips downtown to visit a monument or the statue of Einstein. I see the inside of our car, driving somewhere, everyone singing. I see laughing faces. I see Candyland, UNO, GoFish. I see books, so many books. I hear the words in my mind, “You fed your fish too much? Too bad.” Or “Goodnight cow jumping over the moon.”

Just the other day, we were quoting, “Big brown bear, blue bull…” while we laughed about some of the fun books we used to read together. Just the other day, no one needed me to buckle them in their car seat. We were laughing about a hidden Pokemon. We were watching a movie together. We were swimming in the pool, and I didn’t worry anyone would drown. We were driving down the East coast from New York to Florida. We were hiking the Narrows. We were gathered in prayer.

Just the other day, my daughter and I packed up her room, getting ready for her first semester of college and we came across a box of her baby clothes. Her eyes opened wide, almost in amusement as tears coursed down my face immediately, without warning, and I quickly closed that box. Bad timing. She’s expecting me to cry a little. I’m expecting to cry a lot. 

But I wasn’t expecting this flash of life before my eyes. I wasn’t expecting to question all those days and nights when she was little. I am hit, completely unprepared by a wall of insecurity. Does she know how to iron a shirt? Is that a silly worry? What about all those sleepless nights of regret? Is she forever less than she could be because of some mistake of her mother, my mistake? 

And the biggest question of all, does she have enough? Was I enough? All of these principles, these patterns and teachings I have instilled in her since she was in my belly, is it enough? As her mother, am I enough?

And the answer is no.

And yes.

I am not enough. And even though I most certainly could have been better, even my very best self is not enough. I was not meant to be enough by myself.

But she knows in whom to place her faith. And that is enough. I pray it is enough. Because I have trusted that it will be enough when the time comes for my children to fly. I have spent my life preparing and teaching and becoming, with the assurance that it will be enough. And even now, as I turn the ignition key and pull out of the parking lot, a quiet assurance comforts, and I sense, with a kind of hopeful exhilaration that it will be.