Skip to Content

A New Approach to Discovering Your True Writer's Voice

Julia McCutchen reveals the key ingredient for authentic success as a writer.

Julia McCutcheon
Julia McCutchenJulia McCutchen is an intuitive creator, writer and mentor who guides people to share their unique gifts through creating, writing and living from a conscious and vibrant connection to Truth. A former international publisher, Julia experienced a life-changing accident in 1999 which triggered a series of major quantum leaps in her spiritual awakening. She subsequently developed a tried and tested holistic approach to access the present and aligned state required for original creative expression in all areas of life, especially writing. She is the founder and creative director of the International Association of Conscious & Creative Writers (IACCW) and the author of two books including, Conscious Writing: Discover Your True Voice Through Mindfulness and More (Hay House). For more information and a free video series visit www.JuliaMcCutchen.com and www.iaccw.com

Authenticity is a high priority for most of us who write. As creative souls with a message to share or a story to tell, we aim to come up with original ideas and find the most genuine words to express them to inspire the hearts and minds of our readers.

This makes sense from every point of view because the market is increasingly demanding of authenticity. So if we want to stand out from the crowd and ensure our voice is heard, we need to discover our true writer's voice.

Defining Our True Voice

Clarity about what our true writer's voice actually is can be elusive. The usual definitions tend to fall into one of the following categories:

  1. An author's style, use of language and development of content, characters and dialogue.
  2. The equivalent of the presence an actor has on stage.

Valid though these descriptions may be, they are missing the one key ingredient that truly defines our authentic voice in a way that no-one else can replicate with one hundred percent accuracy.

The key ingredient is revealed to us through Conscious Writing, a holistic approach to creative self-discovery that leads us to discover the essence of who we truly are as creative writers.

When we turn our attention inwards to our creative core, we find our richest insights which we then express through the words we write. This combination of inner truth and outer expression is a blend of soul and craft, and leads us to identify our true voice through what we write and how we write it.

Recognizing Our Writer's Voice

As a result, our writing takes on a timeless quality and becomes recognisable as our own, just like the name we're known by. When someone calls our name, we experience a subtle feeling of ‘rightness' that relates to being correctly addressed.

In contrast, we experience a more obvious sense of discord if we're called by another name, either in error or jest. I've never responded well to being called ‘Julie' instead of ‘Julia' - it just doesn't fit!

A similar scenario applies to recognizing our authentic writer's voice. At first it may be more apparent when our writing does not reflect our innate sense of who we are. We may detect an unconscious pastiche of our favourite author or even a pattern of expression that belongs to our parents, partner or a colleague we admire.
The key that unlocks this particular treasure chest lies with conscious awareness. Conscious Writing teaches us to cultivate conscious awareness, and as we do, we are empowered to release what doesn't resonate with our inner sense of ‘rightness' and develop what does.

Accessing Our Authentic Voice

How do we access our inner core as the true source of our authentic voice?

One effective way is to create inner space before we take outer action. Specifically this means creating mental space because when our minds are constantly full of random thoughts, it's like having an impenetrable membrane that prevents us from reaching the depths of true authenticity.

This may seem counter-intuitive; yet in order to access the deepest levels of authenticity, we need to reach beyond our everyday mind. We do this by stilling the chatter of our everyday thought-stream which often takes us away from authentic truth rather than towards it.

Dive In

The only way to verify the efficacy of this holistic approach is to do so from personal experience. Next time you sit down to write, try this:

  • Begin by spending a few minutes in relaxed stillness; close your eyes, relax your muscles and deepen your breathing.
  • Bring your attention to your thoughts. Simply notice them arising in your mind as if from a distance.
  • Avoid being caught up in their content, simply let them be as a silent witness and soon they will dissolve of their own accord.
  • Now shift your awareness to the moment just after one thought has disappeared and before the next one arrives. You'll discover a space here, however fleeting that may initially be. This is the space of ‘no mind'.
  • With practice, you'll feel an increasing sense of deep inner spaciousness that will give you access to the source of your most inspired ideas as well as your true writer's voice.
  • Write from there.

Julia McCutchen is an intuitive creator, writer and mentor who guides people to share their unique gifts through creating, writing and living from a conscious and vibrant connection to Truth. A former international publisher, Julia experienced a life-changing accident in 1999 which triggered a series of major quantum leaps in her spiritual awakening. She subsequently developed a tried and tested holistic approach to access the present and aligned state required for original creative expression in all areas of life, especially writing. She is the founder and creative director of the International Association of Conscious & Creative Writers (IACCW) and the author of two books including, Conscious Writing: Discover Your True Voice Through Mindfulness and More (Hay House). For more information and a free video series visit www.JuliaMcCutchen.com and www.iaccw.com

Julia's first article on the WritersServices site: Conscious Writing