Nearly 50 years after the fact, I still recall an exercise in my first-year composition class at Colorado State University. The teaching assistant retold the fairytale about Goldilocks and the three bears in the style of famous authors, then invited students to guess who might have written what.

It wasn’t difficult to discern how Ernest Hemingway likely would have described in his sparse way how Goldilocks sampled the porridge: “She tried the first bowl. It was hot. She tried the second bowl. It was cold. She tried the third bowl. It was good. She ate it all.”

The same for Raymond Chandler and his hardboiled poetry: “I took a bite from the first bowl and nearly burned my tongue off. Too hot, like a heater in a small room. The second bowl was too cold. Then I saw the third bowl. It was warm. Just right. I wolfed it down, leaving the bowl as empty as a broken promise.”

The point of the exercise was obvious, even to a freshman who’d yet to contemplate a career as a writer. It was all about the importance of literary voice. Word choice, sentence structure, pacing, tone and perspective form a constellation of attributes that makes writing distinct and memorable. In the case of Hemingway, Chandler and many others, their voices are so distinct they’re recognizable within a single sentence.

Don’t get me wrong. Subject and plot matter. Character development matters even more, I’d argue. Good fiction tells compelling stories about characters you care about. The best fiction does the same thing while exploring human truths. But admit it. If your favorite author — the one whose literary voice resonates so deeply it feels like an earnest conversation with a cherished friend — published her grocery list, you’d run out and buy it. That’s the power of voice.

Even before I attended that composition class at CSU, I was gobsmacked by the literary voice of another author and the voice he gave in turn to one of literature’s most well-known characters. I’m writing about J.D. Salinger and Holden Caulfield. Is there a more unique first-person narration than what’s found in “Catcher in the Rye?” It’s at once intimate, sarcastic, funny … and grand. Although Holden would object to that last adjective: “There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.”

A few weeks ago, I discovered yet another remarkable literary voice in reading “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton. It’s another coming-of-age story, told this time by Ponyboy Curtis. He’s a teen-age “greaser” some might mistakenly dismiss as a juvenile delinquent, but one who relishes sunsets, recites Robert Frost poems and brings a perspective to life well beyond his years. His first-person narration balances grit and tenderness. By the way, the novel opens and closes with a great line: “When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.”

Here’s the paradox of literary voices, though: as much as you admire them, you don’t dare emulate them. It would come across as what Holden Caulfield — and nearly all readers — would recognize as a phony. The quality of voice depends on an authenticity born of an author’s knowledge, experiences and beliefs. All qualities as unique as a snowflake.

I’d like to believe I’ve developed something of a literary voice over decades writing newspaper stories and, more recently, short stories and novels. It’s been an evolutionary process involving writing, listening and revisions followed by more writing, listening and revisions. I’ve spent years reading my work out loud to detect not only the clinks and clanks of poor craftsmanship, but also the discordance of deceit.

I don’t believe for a moment my voice is nearly as distinctive as Hemingway’s or Chandler’s or Salinger’s. Or Hinton’s, for that matter, although she was only 18 when “The Outsiders” was published. Damn, girl.

It’s my voice, nonetheless. Honest and real. For better or worse. I only hope readers want to hear more of it.

Back when I worked at a newspaper in Oregon, I used to joke with a newsroom colleague about sharing the muse as weekly deadlines loomed. “Aren’t you done yet?” I pleaded with the same urgency as someone hopping on one foot outside a locked bathroom door. “Hurry up. I really gotta go … finish my story.”

We didn’t need the divine intervention of a Greek goddess. That’s because there’s nothing so effective as a ticking clock to inspire reporters to file copy. The mere prospect of missing deadlines constitutes an anathema.

But now that I’m a recovering journalist — retired, that is — I no longer face drop-dead deadlines. I like to share pages with the eclectic and supportive writing group with which I meet on Monday evenings. Otherwise, there’s seldom a requirement to perform on demand. I’m blessed to enjoy a more leisurely and, presumably, thoughtful approach to writing fiction. And cursed with the realization I’m sometimes uninspired to do so. At this very moment I should be slogging through the middle third of my latest novel. Instead, I’m working on a blog about inspiration. Or rather, the lack thereof.

Writing can be a creative, engaging and glorious undertaking. There’s nothing more rewarding than crafting a well-written sentence that reveals human truth. Writing can also be an exasperating, debilitating and damned difficult enterprise.

My perspectives are hardly unique. Paul Gallico, another journalist who evolved into a novelist, described both the challenges of writing and desired result of the process. “It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little that you establish contact with your reader.” Problem is, I abhor bloodshed. Especially my own.

Eavesdrop on any conversation among writers or peruse their social media and prepare for a fusillade of laments. My favorite? The confessions writers would endure almost anything to avoid confronting a blank computer screen or empty sheet of paper. Reschedule my root canal for this afternoon? Sure. But why not right away? I can be there in 10 minutes. It’s not that daunting to clean the entire house from top to bottom. Not compared to starting a new work in progress.

Here’s the irony. I’ve discovered the hard way I can’t wait for inspiration to strike. If I do, it won’t. No lightbulbs switch on in my head. Trust me. I’ve seen it in there. It’s a dark, desert highway along which no novel thought grows.

It’s been my experience if inspiration ever does occur, it’s far more likely to drop by unannounced. To come like fog on little cat feet. Think “Back to the Future” and how Dr. Emmett Brown slipped while hanging a clock in his bathroom. He hit his head on the sink and came up with the idea for the flux capacitor, which makes time travel possible.

What’s a writer to do? Short of staging household accidents.

My brilliant and beautiful fiancée — who doubles as my brilliant and beautiful writing coach — offers this no-nonsense antidote: butts in seats. She leads presentations on the subject, in fact. Get your butt in a seat and get to work. Write something. Anything. Her point: get started, build on the momentum and relish the success that follows. The prolific inventor Thomas Edison similarly calculated the composition of genius at 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.

Here’s what’s equally important. Don’t succumb to the distraction your writing isn’t yet perfect. That the three words that best describe the effort are stink, stank, stunk. No less successful an author than Anne Lamont admitted in her book “Bird by Bird” the only way she ever accomplished anything was to write really, really shitty first drafts. Almost all good writing, she insisted, begins with terrible first efforts. But in starting somewhere, persistent writers invariably reach their desired destinations.

Who knows? Perhaps a muse will intervene after all. Although that was never my fortune working at the newspaper in Oregon or one single, solitary moment since. Maybe muses are fickle that way.

If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to plop back into my seat, grit my teeth and return to work on my novel. Sure, that work might reek of mediocrity. I hope nonetheless a word or two could merit salvage.

I’m thrilled my short story titled “Pizza Girl” will be published in the 2026 Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers anthology. It’s an honor to be included among such an excellent and admirable group of authors, and I can’t wait to read this remarkable collection. I remain so grateful for all RMFW does in nurturing the craft of writers along all the stages of their creative journeys. Thank you. Thank you very much.