How I discovered the sound of my third voice...

Let me tell you a story.

I come from a family of enthusiastic talkers.

When I was young, I was told on more than one occasion that I liked the sound of my own voice.

It wasn’t meant as a compliment.

Or an insult.  

It was merely an observation, made by those on the receiving end, on how damned overactive my voice box was.

Especially when it came to giving my opinion free rein.

Which I did with vigorous abandon.

I was still in single digits.

I was a talker.

Still am, truth be told.

My constant chatter was a natural phenomenon.

After a while, I became much more interested in the meaning of the sounds, rather than just the sounds themselves.

So I became a reader.

Then, after another while, I became much more interested in creating my own combination of words. My own stories.

So I became a writer.

And I discovered that my words had a voice that had nothing to do with the sounds they made when spoken aloud.

Nothing to do with the physical characteristics of my larynx.

And everything to do with the physical characteristics of my readers’ ears.

Whenever I spoke, the voice I heard was transmitted via my jawbone into my brain.

What everyone else heard was a voice transmitted via the air and into their ear canal.

They weren’t the same.

That’s why recorded me sounded different to natural me. With recorded me I heard what everyone else heard. It was nearly the same as natural me.

But not quite.

I had two voices.

And one source.

Then, slowly, I began to hear a third voice.

One that had nothing to do with soundwaves.

And everything to do with flavour.

Personality.

Identity.

Presence.

Letters.

I could hear this third voice in everything I wrote.

I still can.

And every time I pick up a pen or place the tips of my fingers onto my keyboard, it feel like I’m opening a door and greeting an old friend.

I always will.

I have three voices.

And one source…