Own Your Voice by @EdenBaylee
Some years ago, another writer, whom I respected said to me, “You have a distinct voice.” She had read a couple of my books, and at the time, I was writing erotic fiction. Her words caught me off guard. “Oh?” I felt somewhat ambivalent toward her statement. “I guess my writing’s become predictable.” “I don’t mean that,” she said. “I mean you have a certain way of telling a story.” She was offering a compliment, but in that moment, I couldn’t fully appreciate what she was saying. I took it to mean she had read enough of my stories to notice a recurring pattern, a particular style of writing. I filed away her words in my brain, confident I’d eventually understand them more clearly. To have one’s own style isn’t a bad thing, right? I’ve been reading erotic fiction for years, so it’s not a stretch to think I’ve adopted stylistic details from authors I’ve admired. At age eleven, I read Pauline Réage’s Story of O . I didn’t understand all of it, but it made...