Writing from the heart
While still in an experimental stage of blogging, you struggle to find an angle for your writing niche. You look around for guidance and you locate several books that steer you in the direction you are aiming for. Does this sound familiar?
All new writers will face the same dilemma when they just start to write. I find books about writing most helpful in stirring the sleeping writer in me and one of the books is titled Writing articles from the Heart: How to Write and Sell Your Life Experience by Marjorie Holmes.
At the beginning of writing for my blog, I struggled to find my writing “voice”. Reading this book helped to articulate my interest in writing - which is comes from my heart. I think I found the “voice” of my writing. I enjoy writing when I write from the heart. I do believe that it makes you happy and your readers can sense this and will share the happiness as well.
Writing from the heart means you write honestly and never feel the pressure to write. You write to express your personal vision and experiences and share them with your readers.
Now back to this book. The content is catered for writing articles for magazines, but you can apply it to writing fiction as well. The advice in this book divided into two sections:
1. Types of articles from the heart – in this section, the author has ten chapters. She provides excellent advice on spotting writing that is written from the heart. You can easily find out if you write from the heart - you enjoy your writing and reading it over and over again - you don’t feel that it is a burden. When you write from the heart the time flies by so quickly you often forget.
2. Writing well from the heart – there are eight chapters in this section and the author describes the technical sides of how to write your articles from the heart. I enjoyed reading this section as much as I did the first. The author’s writing style is very refreshing, light and beautiful.
This book helps me to write what I want to write. It is perfect for someone who would like to write a memoir. You can write it based on your experiences, observations and from your readings. There are tremendous sources of ideas for you to put together and write about.
Another book I am currently reading is Writing from the Heart. Tapping the Power of Your Inner Voice by Nancy Slonim Aronie. This book also has two sections. The content is filled with advice and motivation on how to write from the heart.
How to spot writing from the heart articles?
Most of the writing from the heart can be easily spotted in women’s magazines or Reader’s Digest. The articles are about advice, how to, real life drama or personal experience, nostalgia, humor and inspiration. One similarity is shared amongst all such writing: the content is injected with the writer’s personal experiences. This is the main attraction that readers are drawn to these types of articles - the reader can relate to the events or experiences on a personal level.
So, if you plan to write about your experiences or memoir - get these two books. They will open your heart to write with so much ease. You just need to understand the technical sides of writing. You are the main source so you will find out that you don’t need to go somewhere just to complete your writing task.
Writing from the heart is one way to motivate you to start writing and continue to write as I am doing now everyday for my blog.
Happy writing!
