Have I Found My Voice?

No doubt the most common answer to this would be: it's like asking if you have been in love. If you have, you know it, and if you haven't, it's highly unlikely you would know what it really feels like.

I hope there is a better answer out there about writer's voice. I have wondered about this before, and I wonder about it now because I have thought about it from a different perspective.

There have been moments in my writing when I look at what I have written and I say: it's so me. Until now, I thought that was my voice shining through. Yes, it is. But in those instances, it was when the situation or characters demand a response that I would give. That voice was shining because it was more intune with how I act/speak/think in life.

But what about when I am writing through characters who are nothing like me, or the situations I have never been in? The voice of those characters is not like me. It's true to them, as it should be. But, how do I glimpse whether my writer's voice is in there somewhere?

How do I know? How do I judge? Perhaps, I should just be patient and trust that one day I will just know. Perhaps, I will know...but until then I can't help but wonder if there is a way to know it for sure.

Have you found your writer's voice? How do you define it? How do you know it's there when your characters say or think things you never would?