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 

The Discipline of Your Heart

Mind discipline is rule-bound. It says: You will write for 62.5 minutes every day and produce 1,488 words at each sitting, each sitting commencing at precisely eight minutes past nine o’clock in the morning.

I exaggerate, of course. Yet much discipline is forced, rule-bound, punishing, joyless.

Heart discipline is different. It says that there is no optimal amount of time to spend at this or any writing session.

Heart discipline says, “Trust.”

Trust that when you sit down, whenever you sit down, your Muse will answer your invitation (for your Muse is always with you). Trust that all you hear, including that it is either time to write or time to stop, is true. Trust that all the words that flow through you, be they five or five thousand, are the correct and appropriate ones for the moments in which you hear and record them.

Listen with your heart and discern. Listen with your heart and you will know, through practice, when it is time to start and when it is time to stop. You will know which words will ultimately go and which will stay. Listen to your vision for your work and hew to that. That is your discipline. That is your calling.

Let discipline be your discipleship to that vision, to that calling. That is what it means to be a writer from the heart, a writer of truth. That is what it means to be authentic — as a human being and as a writer. That is what it means to answer the call of your heart, to open to the voice of your Muse.

• excerpted from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write by Mark David Gerson (c) 2008. For more excerpts go to www.calltowrite.com.

The Voice of the Muse book and companion CD have earned 30-plus five-star reviews on Amazon and 2 literary awards. Get your copy of the book and CD on Amazon.com. Alternatively, download it for Kindle, Nook, Kobo or iBook and get your MP3 the CD at Amazon, iTunes or CD Baby.

Photo: by Mark David Gerson: Crystal Cove State Park, Newport Coast, CA

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Trust Unlimited

“You either trust or you do not,” M’nor [the moon] stated. “There is no halfway in between.”
~ The MoonQuest: A True Fantasy

That line, originally from The MoonQuest book and now also part of The MoonQuest screenplay, is both my most loved and hated one in the story. I love it and hate it for the same reason: It is one of the deepest truths I know and, after having lived many years of not trusting much of anything, profound and unconditional trust is the only way I now know to live my life...and, sometimes, the scariest.

Trust in what? In both The MoonQuest and my life, it's trust in that wiser, infinite power that's greater than what we know to be the human mind and body in its physical form. It's trust in an inner knowingness that, although innate, must still be awakened, fostered, nurtured and cultivated. Whether you call it God, Buddha, Allah, Infinite Source, Higher Self, Muse or the voice of your heart, we can all access it, because it lies within each of us -- a soul potential waiting to be sparked into passionate expression.

In The MoonQuest, that intuitive power is all that the main character has to guide him on his journey to bring storytelling back to a silenced land and light back to a darkened moon.

It's no different in life. Whatever rules, structures, systems, ruts and routines we're encouraged to adhere to -- by parents, education, culture, media or fear -- the right path is always the one that, in the end, can rely only on what we know in our hearts to be true.

"I am Tikkan Dreamwalker," Na'an said. "I speak only what you know in your heart to be true."

It's also no different in writing, or in any creative pursuit. There can be no hard-and-fast rules in art...or it's not art. It's a poor imitation of someone else's innovation.

“Ride north one league at a time," O'ric tells Toshar as the young man embarks on his MoonQuest. "The North Star will guide you at night. A path between the suns will guide you in the day. Your heart will guide you always.”

Our hearts do guide us always...when we're open enough to listen, still enough to hear and trusting enough to follow its path.

In the moment of choice, though, trust is rarely the most comfortable option. Often, it's downright terrifying because it seems to make no conventional sense. In the past, that terror paralyzed me, held me back from the hard choices...the trusting choices.

“You do not trust,” M’nor said. Disappointment shaded her voice. “You must either trust or abandon the quest. The choice is yours."

Had Toshar relied on a "common sense" that ignores the non-physical senses and on a "conventional" wisdom that is so rarely wise, he would never have completed the MoonQuest. Had I relied on those limited and limiting tools, there would have been no Toshar, nor would I now be engaged in one of the most exciting endeavors of my life so far: getting The MoonQuest onto the big screen.

Nothing about this film project makes any sense. Yet, here I am. Nothing about my life right now makes any sense. Yet, here I am. As difficult and frightening as the choice for non-sense can be, trusting enough to make that choice has always proven to be the most satisfying, gratifying and rewarding path for me. And so that is the path I continue to take.

You can't half trust any more than you can be half pregnant. You either trust or you do not. Truly, there is no halfway in between.

All quotes from The MoonQuest, book or screenplay (c) 2008, 2010 Mark David Gerson. All rights reserved.

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

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