Do you know who you are as a writer?

We hear about "finding your voice". But do you know exactly what that means? I think the writers that don't know, are still searching. I remember early on hearing it and not really getting what that meant at all. But lately, I've become more and more confident as a writer in the way that I can say, "this is what I write, take it or leave it." It's me! It's all me. And you may not like it, but that's no different than telling me you don't like that my nose is on my face. It's going to be there whether you agree with it or not. And that's how I feel about my writing. This is my style, love it or not, but it's who I am. And part of that "knowing" has come from also learning to become more confident in myself. Not that I mean I don't have doubts at times. But what it means is that I've learned to really stand up for myself in ways I never did before. For instance, I even had an issue I had to deal with this year with my son and a friend of his. Turns out the friend hadn't been nice to him for quite some time. As much as I tried to get him to stand up for himself, he just wasn't ready for that. And then it was starting to spread to his other friends not being nice to him. I knew I had to stand up for him before it got really ugly. So, as uncomfortable as it was for me, I had to approach the mom and tell her what was going on and pray that it got better, not worse! It was scary for a bit, but it all worked out in the end. Phew! But I learned a lot by doing that. I faced my fears and was rewarded for it! And I'm learning to do similar with my writing. Part of that also came from reading an article about how Arthur Miller, author of Death of a Salesman, was given notes that his play was really not that great at all. He made the changes and it still wasn't getting the response he hoped for. So in the end he decided to go with his original. He felt, if he's going to sink, he wants to do it the way he wants. And the rest is history. It's one of the most performed plays ever. And that got me to thinking. If he could be given notes to change everything he wrote and then be right in not listening to them, then what if we writers are sometimes not supposed to take every note we get? It was eye-opening and refreshing. Of course, me and my writer's group friends are at the stage of working with high-profile producers. So we're not newbies, to say the least. At this point, we get the craft. So really, the notes we get should only help our scripts be clarified better. But in the end, we have to trust as writers that what we put on the page, is what we want on the page. And notes that we get that aren't the story we want to tell, we can simply plain ignore. That's what "finding your voice" is all about. But when you think about it, I think we are always growing and always developing. Because as writers, don't we always want to keep on reinventing ourselves and what we write? I know I do. And I look forward to finding "my voice" over and over again.