Already I've gone back on my decision to post flash fiction on Wednesday and Sunday nights. (For the record, since I didn't explain it last time, flash fiction is very short stories. Stories that are five hundred words, more or less.) Seeing as I only reached this decision last night and had a fairly busy day at work today, I don't feel too bad about this. I'll get to it this weekend and be happy with it.
Instead, I've been listening to an interview/reading with Neil Gaiman.
Someone I worked with once told me that I had a "radio voice." Marc told me that my voice had the comforting cadences he could write a piece of music to. I don't know, exactly, what either of them meant. I can only hope that they meant I have a voice like Neil Gaiman's.
Neil's voice is incredibly warm and comforting and friendly, like a good old blanket or an attentitive cat. It lulls you in. But at the same time the things he says are wry and witty and occasionally creepy and very often true. In a very real sense, Neil's voice is perfect - at least for reading the sorts of things he writes. The fact that he is not just an author, as are so many others, but is also a reader and a speaker is what makes his career, in my opinion. It's why I would very much like to have a career like his.
So, Neil has a great voice. But there's a funny thing about voices. When you hear a tape of yourself speaking, you don't sound like you do when you hear yourself in your head. I have a theory about that. I think you actually do sound like you do in your head, you just don't always realize it. The distance between you and your voice changes it for you from when it's in your head. But other people will always hear your voice the way you do in your head, not the way you hear it on tape.
It's likely not true. But I think it would be nice if it is.