They say the best way to find your writing voice is to write. Which is true, but there's more to it than that. People can write for years and still be parroting things they've read without cultivating a style of their own.

Nothing wrong with that if it's what you want to do, but if you're looking for your own voice as a writer, you'll have to work at it. Here are four of my favourite writerly practices:

1. Write a lot. As in, write many different things—prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction, reports, emails, explainers—and for each thing, write plenty of it. The more you practice writing, the more fluent you become at putting your thoughts in order and expressing them with style.

2. Explain the hard thing. Usually when something is "hard to explain", it's because we don't already have a stash of words and phrases that we can draw from. The more "hard things" we try to articulate, the more creative and affirmative we're forced to be with our thoughts and our language.

3. Re-write other people's stuff. You don't have to make a big deal of it or even tell them you're doing it. The aim is to put yourself in a situation where you can study what someone else is trying to say, scrutinise how they've said it and why they've said it that way, and experiment with making big and/or small changes to their wording. This is an exercise in both technical skill and empathy.

4. Consume, consume, consume. Not just books, but many different forms of media. Learn to read like a writer, collecting inspiration, analysing things you like (and dislike), and building a mental stash of words and phrases you can get creative with when the opportunity comes up.

Originally published in Dot Club #21 (June 2020)