I work all day long. Sometimes that work keeps me at my desk, pencil frantically speeding over the page, or fingers scrambling to keep up with my thoughts on the keyboard. Sometimes that work is reading, researching, staring out the window, stalking about my house in frustration, or checking and verifying sources for research. I am at work from the time I get up and grab my coffee, often until I notice it’s well past time to go to bed.
In other incarnations of this life, I’ve been jealous of the time that my job takes away from what I’ve always considered my work: the page, words, stories, and essays. The most fundamental gift the human race possesses, in my humble opinion, is the gift of language, the ability to share our thoughts with others, to influence, to inspire. It has been the single most driving force in the development of the stunning and beautiful variety of cultures on this planet - that we can communicate with each other. It is our vehicle for understanding, for progress, for problem-solving, for learning, for warning, for instruction, for touching each other’s hearts. What greater work can there be, and what other work can possibly contain as many frustrations and heartbreak.
In her recent speech at the Golden Globes, the stunningly talented actress Meryl Streep quoted her friend Carrie Fisher’s advice: “take your broken heart, and turn it into art.” It is advice many writers have given, too. Hemingway: “Write hard and clear about what hurts.” Brecht: “When I say the way things really are, people’s hearts must be torn to shreds.” Rico: “Be Brave.” LeGuin: “Take the tale in your teeth and bite till the blood runs.” And, variously attributed to many different writers: “Writing is easy, you just sit down to the typewriter and open a vein.”
It is what the soul of every writer yearns to do: to take that which tears at our souls, and communicate it to others to broaden their understanding, to increase empathy, to perhaps, just maybe, inspire changes in the world that will prevent other hearts from being broken in the same way. So easy to say. So often impossibly difficult to do.
I’m not talking here about Writer’s Block - that mind-freeze that happens when the words may be in your head, but just Will Not come out onto the page, or, in spite of your love for the piece you are writing, your mind goes blank. There are plenty of books and articles about that. I’m talking here about that voice in your head that urges you to make what you write MATTER, and the self-doubt that often plagues us that we are not doing that. The part of your soul that wants to make your words make some kind of a difference. In short: knowing, identifying, and honoring your purpose in your work.
Many who find that they are driven to write never know what this is for them. Seduced by the market, by the cultural focus on fame, sales, and best-seller lists, they focus on what they are told they should write, rather than what drives their souls to the page. If you want to write, if you want to “tear people’s hearts to shreds,” you probably have to find the way, the courage, to shred your own heart first, to look at it bleeding, and to unabashedly fling that blood onto the page. This will hurt, you will run away from it, but if you find that courage, no act of writing you did before will ever seem worthy as those you do after that sacrifice.
Through a great deal of painful work, both in the world and in myself, I became aware that, for me, the most heart breaking thing in the world is abuse of power. I could say that it enrages me, that it fires up my Irish soul and makes me want to fight, and it does. It also breaks my heart, and when I have the guts to share that broken heart on the page is when I am able to write about women facing the heartbreaks of their lives, about how talented young people are so often abused by the wrong mentor, about how painful it is sometimes to have your sexual identity revealed to you. To be able to do that, to be able to see the wound, I had to be able find the weapon that made it, the part of the world that reached out and hurt me.
There are many ways to go about this - some go into therapy, some have long tearful conversations with a trusted one, some will journal and journal and journal until they are in tears, until the pain rises up and forces its way onto the page. I can’t say for sure what will work best for any individual, but am willing to share some strategies that have not only worked for me, but that I’ve seen open up the talent and voice and soul of many a creative writing student.- The Steinbeck Statement. It may be an apocryphal story, but John Steinbeck is said to have, with each story/book that he wrote, challenged himself to write a one-sentence statement that reflected what he wanted the readers to FEEL when they were done reading that piece. A broader application could be: “when someone reads any piece I write, I want them to feel _______” Maybe try it a few times, hone it down, clarify it, get right to the heart of what you want in their hearts.
- A Focused Freewrite. In writing instruction, freewriting is often used as a way to generate ideas - just sit with pen and paper, set a timer for 2-4 minutes, and start writing WITHOUT stopping, without even pausing. A “focused” freewrite is to start with one particular idea in mind. For instance, begin, “what really matters to me is _______” and go wherever it takes you. Be okay with silly things “what matters to me is that I want coffee right now. I don’t write well without coffee. I don’t do anything well without coffee.” Then KEEP writing - let it go where it will. This kind of freewriting often works best in stages. When finished choose one word or phrase from the first freewrite, and use it as your focus for the next. For instance, from the above, I might choose “I don’t do anything well” and start from there - what would make me feel as though I WAS doing something well?
- Make a collage. Most creative people (and I count writers, here) have a strong visual element to their thinking. Making a collage - choosing images that represent what matters, deciding which image should be next to another, thinking about the relationship between them, deciding what words or text to include in your collage, all help focus thinking. You could make a “What Matters “ collage, or a “Broken Heart” collage, or a “This is What I want you to Know” theme.
Of course, there are many other ways, too. The point is to do whatever it takes to summon the courage, and not only look at your own broken heart, but share that. As a man I admire very much, Parker Palmer, once said in his book “Healing the Heart of Democracy,” there is a difference between hearts that are broken apart, and hearts that are broken open. Hearts that react to the pains of the world by breaking apart become scattered, shredded into useless bits that can only react with fear and anger. Hearts that are broken open can take in the bleeding and broken hearts of others, and, together, begin to heal. 
