Sarcasm is Something That I Do

Dear Kira,

First off, I'm kinda concerned that you think sarcasm is bad. I mean, sarcasm is what I do. You ask me if skydiving from space is a good idea? Oh yeah sure, it's a great idea, not dangerous at all! I think that if everything I said was taken seriously, the CIA would have me in a dark, little room for questioning right about now. But actually.

Anyway...

I guess that the easiest way to answer your question would be to refer you to T.S. Eliot's essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent but I'm not going to do that because that would be cruel and too much like my English 200 midterm for comfort. So, to make a long, long, LONG story short, my answer is no, I don't think it's possible to create a "unique" writing voice because, let's be honest here, every writer is influenced by the writers that have come before them. I don't think that's neccesarily a bad thing, or that you need to be too worried about it because, my experience is that, over time, you develop your own distinct writing style from the bits and pieces of literature you've been exposed to.

Still, I know how it feels to think you're "copying". What really concerns me is that there are supposedly only four "plots" in literary history: tragic, comic, romantic, and ironic. That makes being original hard. What am I supposed to do? Write a story about buying a gallon of milk? That would be a real thriller. I don't know, maybe it's possible to be original in literature. What do you think?

Sigh,
Maria

Hearing voices

Dear Maria,
As I've been writing these blogs, I've noticed that my voice becomes increasingly sarcastic. I mean, I don't walk around the HUB telling people who wish they had more time, "yeah, well I wish I had a pony," but my writing voice gets more of an edge to it. Lately I've been reading memoirs with this sarcastic bite to them, so I'm wondering, is my own style developing as a writer, or am I copying the voice of those I read?

I've found these memoirs to have really strong imagery and it's easy to relate to Tiny Fey when she talks about her ex-boyfriend sucking face with a hot blond, and in Yoga Bitch I nearly fell off my chair laughing when Suzanne Morrison described when her yoga friends in Bali thought it cleansing to drink pee (side note: This did not happen in Colorado, or you would have heard some "get me out of here"s from my end). So, after a quality reading experience, I wanted to evoke that same sort of imagery through my own writing.

But then after reading a classic or two (hey, it happens), I end up writing much more flowery sentences with sophisticated vocab and all that jazz. Sometimes it feels like more of a stretch for me, especially when I'm trying to bang out some poetry that doesn't sound like a freaking soap opera, but then I think "hey, this is feelin' pretty natural. I could get used to this." My keyboard must be so confused, not knowing if I'm a Tina Fey or Ernest Hemingway wannabe. You know what, keyboard? I don't know either. We can both be in this goshdarn identity crisis.

So can you create your writing voice, or is it natural? I guess it goes down to the nature/nurture debate...psychology class, you can't escape me.

Maybe that's why I like blogging so much...It's a socially acceptable form of being outrageously random and sarcastic.

Peace and Ponies,
Kira