Take Possession of Yourself

At one time I imagined that if I wrote like other people, if I imitated writers I liked, I would only have to expose myself through a disguise. I did this for a time, but my own self kept coming through. It took me a while to see that it isn't a question of discovering your voice but of seeing that you have a voice already, just as you have a personality, and that if you continue to write you have no choice but to speak, write, and live in it.What you have to do, in a sense, is take possession of yourself. The human being and the writer are the same. It is only with the heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.

HANIF KOUREISHI