A Conversation with the Voices in Your Head: Talking Out Your Writing

by Lily Pudlo

Caravaggio’s “Narcissus” (1597-1599)

The other day I was sitting in workshop working on essay revisions when my professor asked everyone to put on their coats. I slung my black wool peacoat that had braved the December New England slush on my walk from the parking lot over my shoulders with hesitance. Class wasn’t over for another hour. Where were we going?

“I want you to take your phone on a 10-minute walk and think about all the things in your essay that you’re not saying,” my professor said, “Hit record, and start talking.”

The task seemed silly. What would I say in ten minutes that I couldn’t write all semester? I was revising a very personal essay on gender identity and was getting nowhere. Every time I sat down to write, I couldn’t find the words to express how I felt. As a gay woman who had spent nineteen years in the closet dating someone who came out as nonbinary a year into our relationship, I was trying to navigate the difficulty of labels and gender roles within a queer relationship. But how do you talk about the gravity of socially constructed gender roles, a two decade-long coming out journey, and the complexity of sexuality in a 5,000-word essay?

I had no idea. So, I swallowed my pride and started talking.

“So…what is it I’m not saying?” I whispered into my phone. I had found a secluded spot under some pine trees behind the English building, but I still worried about my voice carrying. I kept my voice low, pushing air out through my stomach, and my tone felt honest, like I was speaking only for my own ears.

At first, I just kept repeating that phrase: What is it I’m not saying? What am I not saying? The repetition was mostly out of embarrassment from talking to myself, but that little phrase got the ball rolling. Soon I was talking about the content of my essay in a way I never had before. I had almost forgotten that this mini self-therapy session was a class assignment. Now, I was just ranting.

“It’s scary putting your faith into someone else’s journey, especially when you can’t define or describe it,” I said into my phone, “That’s a lot of the queer experience, and it’s hard.”

That right there, that collective confusion of labels in the queer community – that was what I wasn’t saying in my essay, and that was what I needed to start talking about.

Many times, my professors have advised me to start small and expand. Begin an essay with the unique and expand that unique thing into something universal. For me, finding the “Big Picture” in my unique life experiences is extremely daunting. How do I make my life matter to everyone else?

Well, I can’t make anyone relate to my writing, but I can search for that “Big Picture” much easier by talking it out. Often, the things that relate me to the rest of the world are ideas and stories that are already inside of me. They’re just living in my head, waiting for something (or someone) to draw them out.

So, next time you’re struggling to paint your muddy thoughts and feelings onto the page, take a walk. Talk to yourself. Maybe the voices in your head will share that secret you’re not saying.

Lily Pudlo is the nonfiction editor at Barnstorm Journal. She spends most of her days as a nonfiction MFA student at the University of New Hampshire, but in her free time she likes to play rugby, Dungeons & Dragons, and watch as many wlw shows as possible before they’re canceled.