{"id":68,"date":"2004-09-13T11:18:00","date_gmt":"2004-09-13T11:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/?p=68"},"modified":"2004-09-13T11:18:00","modified_gmt":"2004-09-13T11:18:00","slug":"finding-the-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/finding-the-voice\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding the voice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Excerpt from LOUIS MENAND’s review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation\u201d (Gotham; $17.50), by Lynne Truss.<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

“Does this mean that the written “voice” is never spontaneous and natural but always an artificial construction of language? This is not a proposition that most writers could accept. The act of writing is personal; it feels personal. The unfunny person who is a humorous writer does not think, of her work, “That\u2019s not really me.” Critics speak of “the persona,” a device for compelling, in the interests of licensing the interpretative impulse, a divorce between author and text. But no one, or almost no one, writes “as a persona.” People write as people, and if there were nothing personal about the result few human beings would try to manufacture it for a living. Composition is a troublesome, balky, sometimes sleep-depriving business. What makes it especially so is that the rate of production is beyond the writer\u2019s control. You have to wait, and what you are waiting for is something inside you to come up with the words. That something, for writers, is the voice.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Write to me: Suman[at]techwritersindia[dot]com<\/p>\n

\n\n\n<\/map>\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Excerpt from LOUIS MENAND’s review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation\u201d (Gotham; $17.50), by Lynne Truss. “Does this mean that the written “voice” is never spontaneous and natural but always an artificial construction of language? This is not a proposition that most writers could accept. The act of writing is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[195],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"jetpack-portfolio-admin-thumb":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Suman Kumar","author_link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/author\/suman-kumar\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Excerpt from LOUIS MENAND’s review of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation\u201d (Gotham; $17.50), by Lynne Truss. “Does this mean that the written “voice” is never spontaneous and natural but always an artificial construction of language? This is not a proposition that most writers could accept. The act of writing is…","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Gbk8-16","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":540,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2004\/04\/track-want-me-artists-suman-and-kicha-released-022001\/","url_meta":{"origin":68,"position":0},"title":"Track: Want Me; Artists: Suman and Kicha; Released: 02\/2001","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"April 26, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Download the song 'Want me'. (RIght-click>Save Target as to save it to your disk) 2001 February. Her birthday was about a week away. I decided to gift her a song again (like I did in 2000). So Kicha -the guitar great- and I sat down. We wanted to do a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":776,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2005\/07\/we-the-people-on-screen-smoking\/","url_meta":{"origin":68,"position":1},"title":"We the people: On screen smoking","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"July 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The last episode of We the people on NDTV was enchanting, for it uncovered the stupidity at the top levels and also shed light on how intelligent aam junta is. Here are some snippets:The head of a consumer rights group (consumer voice? I don't recall) thinks Sharukh Khan is a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":859,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/the-personal-loan-circus\/","url_meta":{"origin":68,"position":2},"title":"The Personal Loan Circus","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"January 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Have you ever tried securing a personal loan from any of these multi-national banks? If you did, you'll know how you can get shafted if you don't watch out. Interest rates vary from bank to bank, which is absurd. Think about it, Stanchart told me that it lends at 16%\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":255,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/world-usability-day-in-chennai-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":68,"position":3},"title":"World Usability Day in Chennai","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"November 9, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Note:The presentation I made on the World Usability Day in Chennai reflects only my personal views and does not reflect the views of my employer. Muthu said: \"Well, the turn-out exceeded expectations! There were 72 usability enthusiasts. One of the main highlights of the evening was the presentation made by\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Sumankumar@World USability Day, Chennai","src":"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/25\/61499130_07d7ef4300_m.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":872,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/personal-sound-tracks\/","url_meta":{"origin":68,"position":4},"title":"Personal Sound Tracks","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"March 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Picture this: When you were a kid you caught your kid bro stealing from your grand pa's wallet. Your kid bro turns around and spots you. The thought that is racing in your head is 'Got the b**tard. I am gonna nail him this time.' Your kid bro's face is\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":119,"url":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/the-personable-manual\/","url_meta":{"origin":68,"position":5},"title":"The Personable Manual","author":"Suman Kumar","date":"February 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Why do product manuals sound formal and stiff-upper-lipped? Why don\u2019t users read manuals? These questions have haunted the hallowed precincts of Technical Writing for quite some time now. From what I have seen in Indian writers, I am forced to conclude that English Composition, as we were taught in school,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"manual\"","block_context":{"text":"manual","link":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/tag\/manual\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sumankumar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}