Writing that has a voice is writing that has something like a personality. But whose personality is it? As with most things in art, there is no straight road from the product back to the person who made it. There are writers read and loved for their humor who are not especcially funny people, and writers read and loved for their eloquence who, in conversation, swallow their words or can't seem to finish a sentence. Wisdom on the page correlates with wisdom in the writer about as frequently as a high batting average correlates with a high IQ: they just seem to have very little to do with one another. Charming people can produce prose of sneering senentiousness, and cranky neurotics can, to their readers, seem to be inexhaustibly delightful. Personal drabness, through some obscure neural kink, can deliver verbal blooms. Readers who meet writers whose voice they have fallen in love with usually need to make small adjustment in order to hang on to their infatuation.
-Louis Menand
In Menands’ writing he states that writers are loved for their humor but are not especially funny people in person. This gives some understanding as to why it is easier for one to write down there thoughts or feelings, because they might not have the confidence to say to a group of people or even one person about some of the things that they write down. Where as a comedian may have an easier time just standing up in front of people cracking jokes off the top of their head but when asked they might have problems writing down jokes off the top of his head. It all depends on the comfort level of the person. Menand also states that readers who meet writers whose voice they have fallen in love with usually need to make a small adjustment in order to hang on to their infatuation. Many of this has to do with, again, the confidence of the writer to speak in person. The readers who love the writers work will usually think that the writer can very easily talk about his or her work and explain what it is that they were thinking while writing. But it seems to be the case that many writers are more, not necessarily quiet about the work they have done, but more to the point of being very humble about their work. It is very hard to get a full understanding of exactly what the writer is thinking or feeling while composing his or her work, unless there is some sort of note or biography placed in with the book giving further explanation as to the way the writer felt about the work.
