Deb, despite all the attention I'm trying to get through writing, your meme is making me sweat. Because it still feels unseemly to me to think my stuff is good, or something. Except for ten seconds on the high of writing it, but hey, I'm stoned then.

erika, at some point, you're going to have to learn to love your own voice. The voice is there. Don't muffle it - don't bury it.

And sweating is fine, so long as you don't let it drown you, or stop you.

Well, I'm trying, but being *asked* to, makes me realize it's still hard.

I hope you do do the meme. I really want to see what you come up with as first or spontaneous choices, both as reader and as writer.

I know instantly what I come up with as reader. But I'm having a problem as a writer. I like a lot of my stuff--I just don't have one bit that I love.

Still looking.

I think I fear I'll be overcome with self-love, um, apart from the kind that makes you go blind if you do it too much, and my whole world-view will be upended.

It's not so much about posting a piece that you love of your own - it's more about posting a piece that you think is immediately recognisable as you.

Bev, I picked something so strange -- it's so hard to pick one small thing. I like a lot of my stuff, too, but as soon as I picked one, I wished I had picked something else.

I've had a hard time determining a favorite. There are articles I've written that I think were pretty good, but it's hard to find a paragraph or so.

The bit I posted, as a writer (as a reader, I posted Shirley Jackson's prologue to Hill House), isn't remotely my favourite. But as something that worked to encapsulate what I think of as my voice, it worked.

BTW, this isn't a friendslocked meme; anyone can come play. I'm debg at livejournal. Writers, all welcome. And it doesn't have to be fiction - if it's fic, or poetry, or drama, or anything else that you feel catches your voice, go for it.