I don't know, I've read your stuff and you have a very distinctive voice, unlike your blog voice and speaking.
I wouldn't worry about your voice. It's something that English professors and editors and reviewers talk about, I think, not something writers can edit themslves on. I've been told I have voice in my writing since I started writing,(wha? wa? heh?) but I never thought about it or even attached much importance to it. Or really even take it out to look at "my voice!" If I did that, then maybe I would lose it!
I just have always tried to write what I felt, thought, with passion to communicate all that is inside of me to others. Usually, I have to simplify things in edting, but not for voice, just to make things clearer, more beautiful, for me, for others.
If you love what you are doing when your are writing, feel it's something important to communicate, to share with others, love your subject, chose your words your way because it pleases you to do that, voice evolves naturally out of all of that process. It's something you let other people say about you, while you inwardly smille and think impatiently "now, when can I get some time to get back to the writing...." For me, it's that way. The writing is my love.
I am EXTREMELY sorry to hear about the effect of the NCLB act on history NF. I've never been a fan of that educational style. But there is still a positive side. Children still love to read nonficton to find things out on their own, ESPECIALLY boys! So, they will seek it outside the school setting if they can find books that are done well.
BTW, an editor of chldren's books once told me privately that she thought college level English and literature classes would have "ruined" my writing! Now, I'm still trying to figure that one out! Who cares?! Got to get back to some writing now that I'm cooking up...
Thanks, Don and Rinda. I should clarify that I do like my voice just fine -- I just see a need to be more conscious about pushing and stretching myself.
It's the impact of NCLB that most interests me here -- I hadn't considered that before, but this theory sounds plausible and then some. I'd love to hear from editors, teachers, librarians, parents of kids in public schools, etc., about whether this theory fits with their own observations and experiences.
I don't think the move away from whole language is so much the culprit as is the move toward more and more testing. Textbooks seem as if they're the best way to prepare children for standardized tests, and there's very little time for anything else. THe school district I was a librarian in twenty+ years ago and homeschoolers in general were and are all very anti-whole language. Yet, those teachers twenty years ago and most homeschoolers nowadays use lots and lots of children's trade books, fictioin and non fiction, in their curriculum, especially biography and lots of historical fiction.
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