Finding My Voice

I lost my voice during my second year of college.

And then I found it again after the plane crash.

Wait. That’s not exactly right. I didn’t find it again until YEARS after the plane crash.

And to be accurate, I didn’t “lose” anything. I put aside my voice in a valiant effort to pursue a solitary goal: to achieve the grades necessary to get into a top law school, and in turn, to be a successful corporate litigator.

That second year of college you see, an American Literature Professor had dismissed my voice quite summarily after I told him that I didn’t like Lolita.

Perhaps you don’t understand it, he underestimated me.

I understand it just fine, thank you very much. And I still.don’t. like.it.

C+, he responded.

I realized then that creativity was subjective. And that my grades would reflect that subjectivity for the next four years. Perhaps longer.

A friend who was already in law school reminded me that my own aspirations of attending law school after college would allow no place for creativity.

In the law, you will need to write in your client’s voice. Not your own. Never in your own voice. Get rid of your own.

Because that made sense to me, and Lolita didn’t, I chose a different path. I traded in my creative writing courses and journals for Philosophy of Law and Legal Writing.

It worked. I got into a top law school, ultimately went to work for one of the best U.S. law firms, in one of its most respected departments, and was a successful litigator for thirteen years.

Never in your own voice.

Nearly 20 years after Lolita, I found myself on a roadside in the Dominican Republic, with my husband and three small children, where our driver waited patiently next to the prettiest row of pastel-colored homes, for an armed drug enforcement truck to pass by – the truck loaded down with black garbage bags full of cartel-recovered drugs and rows of machine gun toting agents. I closed my eyes, said a silent prayer, and –

Found my voice.

I said that roadside prayer in 2009 during my first month of what was meant to be a year-long sabbatical from corporate law. I had taken the sabbatical not to write a novel, but to write business articles, to do advocacy and pro bono work, and later to consult with a start-up company. The reasons that found me on that Dominican Republic roadside waiting for machine guns to pass by, included serendipity and an earnest though naive idea about coming to peace with a plane crash on my residential corner that I had survived eight years earlier.

A plane that had been bound for the Dominican Republic.

Later, I wrote down my silent roadside prayer, turning it into an essay that gave breath to dreams I didn’t even know could still be revived. Dreams of writing creative non-fiction, of writing fiction, and of exercising my creative muscle for the first time in nearly twenty years.

I started my first novel that same year, and I never went back to practicing law.

Published last year, my debut novel, Lemongrass Hope, is a tale of second chances, and what I believe to be a unique take on the nearly universal question – “What If?” The idea for Lemongrass Hope evolved during a time I was questioning my own path – my own previously unquestioned decisions, not the least of which was my decision to give up a creative life for a career in corporate litigation. Lemongrass Hope was, quite simply, born from the fear that I had taken a mis-step. Perhaps many.

Threaded with believable magic and mysticism that allow the un-real to become all too real if only for a short time, Lemongrass Hope is a work of fiction, with characters, though relatable, that are drawn entirely from my imagination.

Characters who tell a story that is – finally – told in a voice I have no intention of losing ever again.

—

Amy Impellizzeri is a reformed corporate litigator, former start-up executive, and best-selling author. Amy’s first novel, Lemongrass Hope (Wyatt-MacKenzie 2014) debuted as an Amazon best-seller (Romance/Fantasy and Romance/Time Travel). Oprah’s very first Book Club Selection author and New York Times #1 Best-Selling Author, Jacquelyn Mitchard, has called Lemongrass Hope a “fine and fresh thing – a truly new story.” Lemongrass Hope was featured by Library Journal and Foreword Reviews Magazine, and has been a favorite with Book Clubs and numerous Book Bloggers (including as the #1 favorite reviewed selection in 2014 by The Literary Connoisseur). Lemongrass Hope was recently selected as an INDIEFAB 2014 Book of the Year Finalist (Romance) by Foreword Reviews Magazine.

Amy’s first non-fiction book, Lawyer Interrupted (ABA Publishing 2015), is due out June 2015. Her essays and articles have appeared in The Huffington Post, ABA Law Practice Today, The Glass Hammer, Divine Caroline, Skirt! Magazine, among more.

Please connect with her by visiting her website: www.amyimpellizzeri.com …

or via Facebook, (https://www.facebook.com/ImpellizzeriAmy) …

or Twitter. (https://twitter.com/AmyImpellizzeri).

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing