on Writers Helping Writers:

When I first started writing fiction, I desperately wanted to be Margaret Atwood. I read several of her novels and, consciously or not (probably consciously), my writing voice started coming out a lot like hers—only minus the talent and the authenticity because… (wait for it) I’m not Margaret Atwood. I didn’t sell a single short story.

Many years later I decided to write a thing (it was sort of a prose poem but really, it defied genre) completely as “me.” It turned out quirky, funny (if you share my sense of humor, that is), and weird—rather like someone I know. When I finished it, I thought, well, that was fun. Maybe no one will buy it, but who cares? It sold to the first magazine I sent it to and was later anthologized.

Too much has been made of the process of finding your voice as a writer, and I think it gets us into trouble. We believe it’s something that it’s not and then we make it way more complicated than it needs to be.