Voice is an absolutely vital part of your writing brand, but one of the hardest to quantify. It makes the difference between dry, unmemorable writing and the kind of thing you share with your friends. It’s hard to explain exactly, but look here: Below is a video of Metallica’s The Memory Remains off their studio album. Fast forward to 2:00 and listen to the chorus. Marianne Faithfull is crooning away with a sense of pain and loss that makes you want to curl up somewhere with a Sylvia Plathe novel and a bottle of ambien. Now here’s a copy of the same song from a live concert they did with the help of the San Francisco Philharmonic. Faithfull’s voice is replaced with a brass section. FFW to 1:57 for the same section of song. And now you want to join a cavalry charge, maybe go uproot a tree somewhere. Same song. Same verse. Same notes, lyrics, tone and pacing. But the instrument changed and the song is utterly different. So it is with voice. You can tell the same story to far different effect just by fiddling with how you tell it. Here’s a voice exercise to do on your own. Go read an article on the same topic at the sites for FOX news and for MSNBC. In most cases, even though both typically take their base information from the same news feeds, you’ll feel like you’ve read about two different events. If you have time, play with this exercise in the comments below. Tell a one-to-two paragraph story using two different voices. Maybe one as a dry british butler and another as an angry teen. Maybe with the voice of a cop in one, and a robber in the other. The best way to establish your voice is to play with all kinds of voices until you find yours. Have fun, and as always, thanks for listening.

I spent the last week camping and thinking about stuff I learned at the Willamette Writers’ Conference. Turns out I’m doing a lot of things right, and a bunch of stuff wrong.

Take this blog, f’rinstance. I do good topics, or so I’m told. Writers find it useful. Some non-writers find it interesting. But my SEO is terrible, and I’m using last year’s formatting. I also do too little to build up a following and reader participation.

In my writing, I make good money working on a variety of topics. But I’ll be grinding away like a well-paid, happy cog unless I start building a personal brand based on a specialty.

I enjoy my fiction, but need to get more serious about it if I ever want to be published. Which means looking harder at self-publishing, e-publishing, and other options for getting that first book out there.

Lots of work to do, and I want to make y’all a part of it. Seems like, as I research new topics and begin new projects, I can walk you through my process and we can all learn together. Be on the lookout for series on:

• Launching a niche blog
• Proposing a non-fiction book
• Learning post-Penguin SEO
• E-publishing fiction
• Submitting a finished young adult novel
• Changing how this portfolio works

And whatever you guys want to learn about. What topics would be most useful to y’all? Comment below with your thoughts.

I spent the weekend at the Willamette Writers Conference. I’ve already talked about conferences here and here. This was such a fantastic event, I’ll talk about it in detail — and about some conference strategies — in later posts.

But I’m goin’ camping. Meanwhile, writers should check out the people below. These were presenters or others I met this weekend whose influence will improve my writing and my career. They’ll help yours, too.

John Ellis is an SEO god. I do SEO writing professionally (among other things). Other SEO pros have contacted me based entirely on having seen the quality and effectiveness of what I do. Comparing me to John in this topic is like comparing me to Royce Gracie in grappling. Seriously, check his stuff out.

 Larry Brooks writes books, and approaches his writing with the mind of an engineer and the experience of a marketing trainer. He delivered the most useful and actionable presentation of the conference — and is gifted at convincing right-brain creatives to adopt left-brain organization for better writing and faster processes. His site is full of free advice, good enough that I already bought his book.

Melissa Hart teaches travel writing. No matter what the snotty guy who knows a pithy quote might say, she not only teaches — she does. And her energy makes you want to know how to do it, too.

Kelly Williams Brown is an up-and-coming writer. She has a blog, which is now a book that made her a ridiculous pile of money — and is being turned into a TV series. She’s a competent writer with a gift for building platform. More importantly, she’s an inspiring example of what you can do with modest talent, a timely idea, and the will to follow that idea with passion and determination.

That’s all for now. I’m off to swim and hike and stuff with my family.

Thanks for listening.