Dare to Feel. Dare to Connect.

"Go to the emotional epicenter, where it hurts most, and write on. If you dare."
~ Bill Donovan, editor/publisher, Creative Screenwriting

"Only connect."
~ E.M. Forster

The call to write is a call to share our emotional depth with others. It's a call to be vulnerable. It's a call to connect.

Thing is, we don’t touch others at a deep level when we connect mind-to-mind, though that connection is a powerful and important one. We touch others at a deep level when we connect heart-to-heart.

Unless we write from our deepest heart, unless we tell the stories that move us, we will never move our readers.

I spent the first chunk of my writing career avoiding writing from what Bill Donovan calls the "emotional eipcenter." I observed and reported, intellectually and dispassionately. I told stories, but without heart.

In not revealing my feelings (at times, not even to myself), I failed to engage my readers in any but superficial ways. I failed them and I failed myself.

I didn't connect.

Do you want to write truth, the truth from which both powerful fiction and nonfiction arise? If you want to write truth, if you want to write words that will touch the deepest emotions and connections and truths of your reader, then you must write what your heart calls on you to write. You must go where you've never dared go before -- in your writing, certainly; in your life, perhaps.

You must, as I write in The Voice of the Muse's "Thirteen Rules for Writing," go for the jugular, for your jugular: "Go for the demon you would run from. Go for the feeling you would flee from. Go for that emotion you would deny. Once you put it on paper, you strip it of its power over you. Once you put it on paper, you free it to empower your work."

You free it, as well, to empower your readers. You empower them to feel their emotions, to be vulnerable and to share their stories.

"We tell our stories in order to live," Joan Didion writes in The White Album

We tell our stories, too, to connect.

There is neither life nor connection outside the heart.

• Where are you refusing to be vulnerable in your writing?

• Where are you afraid to reveal your feelings, perhaps even to yourself?

• In what ways are you reluctant to connect, heart-to-heart, with your readers?

• Where, right now, can you go for the jugular – your jugular – and dare to write from your emotional epicenter?

Adapted from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write © Mark David Gerson

Part of answering the call to write and birthing the book that's inside you involves tapping into that emotional epicenter. That's some of the work I do as a writing/creativity/life coach. Need help getting there? Drop me a line.

Photo by Mark David Gerson: Tonopah, AZ 

Dare to Feel. Dare to Connect

"Go to the emotional epicenter, where it hurts most, and write on. If you dare."
~ Bill Donovan, editor/publisher, Creative Screenwriting

"Only connect."
~ E.M. Forster

The call to write is a call to share our emotional depth with others. It's a call to be vulnerable. It's a call to connect.

Thing is, we don’t touch others at a deep level when we connect mind-to-mind, though that connection is a powerful and important one. We touch others at a deep level when we connect heart-to-heart.

Unless we write from our deepest heart, unless we tell the stories that move us, we will never move our readers.

I spent the first chunk of my writing career avoiding writing from what Bill Donovan calls the "emotional eipcenter." I observed and reported, intellectually and dispassionately. I told stories, but without heart.

In not revealing my feelings (at times, not even to myself), I failed to engage my readers in any but superficial ways. I failed them and I failed myself.

I didn't connect.

Do you want to write truth, the truth from which both powerful fiction and nonfiction arise? If you want to write truth, if you want to write words that will touch the deepest emotions and connections and truths of your reader, then you must write what your heart calls on you to write. You must go where you've never dared go before -- in your writing, certainly; in your life, perhaps.

You must, as I write in The Voice of the Muse's "Thirteen Rules for Writing," go for the jugular, for your jugular: "Go for the demon you would run from. Go for the feeling you would flee from. Go for that emotion you would deny. Once you put it on paper, you strip it of its power over you. Once you put it on paper, you free it to empower your work."

You free it, as well, to empower your readers. You empower them to feel their emotions, to be vulnerable and to share their stories.

"We tell our stories in order to live," Joan Didion writes in The White Album

We tell our stories, too, to connect.

There is neither life nor connection outside the heart.

• Where are you refusing to be vulnerable in your writing?

• Where are you afraid to reveal your feelings, perhaps even to yourself?

• In what ways are you reluctant to connect, heart-to-heart, with your readers?

• Where, right now, can you go for the jugular -- your jugular -- and dare to write from your emotional epicenter?


Adapted from >The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write.

Part of answering the call to write and birthing the book that's inside you involves tapping into that emotional epicenter. That's some of the work I do as a writing/creativity/life coach. Need help getting there? Drop me a line.


Photo by Mark David Gerson: Autumn by the Tesuque River, Tesuque, NM

When Was the Last Time You Told Your Story?

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
~ Muriel Rukeyser


Only connect.
~ E.M. Forster


Those were exceptional times, the darkest of ages, in a land where "once upon a time" was a forbidden phrase and fact the only legal tender.
~ The MoonQuest


It's said that Native American medicine men ask three questions of the sick:
• When was the last time you sang?
• When was the last time you danced?
• When was the last time you told your story?

We're all natural storytellers, sharing our stories every time we communicate with someone -- whether it's a casual water-cooler chat or deep conversations with a close friend.

Dr. Anne Foerst, a professor of theology and computer science at St. Bonaventure University and author of God in the Machine: What Robots Teach Us About Humanity and God, has suggested that rather than calling ourselves homo sapiens ("wise man"), we should call ourselves homo narrandus ("storytelling man").

That's because storytelling is innate, possibly predating spoken language itself. It's easy to imagine that after our caveman ancestors returned to the communal fire from a day's hunting and gathering, they gestured, grunted and mimed their adventures to their fellow primitives. One way or another, we've been telling stories ever since.

Too often, though, our stories are censored...sometimes, even from ourselves. Too often, we live safe and small, reigning in our passions, opening only to the least risky experiences, sharing only the most superficial aspects of our lives.

We've been conditioned to be afraid of opening our hearts and expressing our depth. We've been taught to be shallow and clever. We've learned to equate vulnerability with unacceptable risk.

Yet the only way to touch others deeply is to allow ourselves to be touched deeply. And the only way to tell the stories that change lives, including our own, is through the kinds of leaps of faith that open us to judgment, mockery and ridicule...those same leaps of faith that open us to profound connection and transformation, to the ever-present magic and miracle that wait only for us to notice them and welcome them into our lives.

My novel, The MoonQuest, is the story of a society where storytelling has been banned, storytellers have been banished and all vision and creativity have been extinguished.

It's also my story.

I don't know why, when or how my storytelling was silenced. All I know is that I was dead inside until The MoonQuest's story began to tell itself through me. As its main characters found their voices, I found mine. As they shared their darkness, I shared mine. Only then did I realize that The MoonQuest's story of creative awakening was also mine and that it was a story I had to free into the world.

From that story came other stories. From that opening came other openings. From that healing came other healings.

As I write in the epigraph to The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, writing is "truly a tool of wizards, witches and sorcerers." It’s through the alchemy of our stories, lived authentically and shared truthfully, that all worlds change, beginning with our own.

• When was the last time you sang?
• When was the last time you danced?
• When was the last time you told your story?

Whether it was last night or last year, it's time to do it again -- to deepen the experience, for yourself and all those fortunate enough to share in it.


• Need helping awakening, accessing, developing or deepening your stories? Consider these workshops and coaching groups -- in New Mexico and beyond.

Dare to Feel. Dare to Connect

"Go to the emotional epicenter, where it hurts most, and write on. If you dare."
~ Bill Donovan, editor/publisher, Creative Screenwriting

"Only connect."
~ E.M. Forster

The call to write is a call to share our emotional depth with others. It's a call to be vulnerable. It's a call to connect.

Thing is, we don’t touch others at a deep level when we connect mind-to-mind, though that connection is a powerful and important one. We touch others at a deep level when we connect heart-to-heart.

Unless we write from our deepest heart, unless we tell the stories that move us, we will never move our readers.

I spent the first chunk of my writing career avoiding writing from what Bill Donovan calls the "emotional eipcenter." I observed and reported, intellectually and dispassionately. I told stories, but without heart.

In not revealing my feelings (at times, not even to myself), I failed to engage my readers in any but superficial ways. I failed them and I failed myself.

I didn't connect.

Do you want to write truth, the truth from which both powerful fiction and nonfiction arise? If you want to write truth, if you want to write words that will touch the deepest emotions and connections and truths of your reader, then you must write what your heart calls on you to write. You must go where you've never dared go before -- in your writing, certainly; in your life, perhaps.

You must, as I write in The Voice of the Muse's "Thirteen Rules for Writing," go for the jugular, for your jugular: "Go for the demon you would run from. Go for the feeling you would flee from. Go for that emotion you would deny. Once you put it on paper, you strip it of its power over you. Once you put it on paper, you free it to empower your work."

You free it, as well, to empower your readers. You empower them to feel their emotions, to be vulnerable and to share their stories.

"We tell our stories in order to live," Joan Didion writes in The White Album

We tell our stories, too, to connect.

There is neither life nor connection outside the heart.

• Where are you refusing to be vulnerable in your writing?

• Where are you afraid to reveal your feelings, perhaps even to yourself?

• In what ways are you reluctant to connect, heart-to-heart, with your readers?

• Where, right now, can you go for the jugular -- your jugular -- and dare to write from your emotional epicenter?

Part of answering the call to write and birthing the book that's inside you involves tapping into that emotional epicenter. I'll be encouraging you to do that in both my upcoming workshops in Albuquerque. See this blog post for more details. (My calendar of upcoming book-signings, classes, workshops and other events is always posted on my page at booktour.com.

Adapted from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write, winner of a 2009 IPPY Silver Medal as one of the top writings books of the year


Photo by Mark David Gerson: Cholla cactus flower, Sandia foothills, Albuquerque, NM