Writing from the Heart

I recently found the Canadian Writers Collective, and the latest is post is by Tricia Dower, called "Summer School, Part 1: Courageous Hearts":

A few weeks ago, I attended the 11th annual summer school of the Victoria School of Writing hoping to get tips on writing more from the heart — something gurus keep telling you to do. “Write your heart out,” says Joyce Carol Oates. My writing can be so objective at times as to seem clinical, I’ve been told. I’m not one for gushing.

I found what I was seeking but not from the workshops on craft. From faculty and student readings, instead, many of them so emotional they caught me off guard.

Dower goes on to talk about Susan Musgrave and Maria Coffey, two women who write deeply and honestly from their pain.

How much of yourself do you reveal in your writing? Are you afraid of putting yourself on the page for everyone to see?

For some reason, writing from the heart has become vital to my process, because that's where the most juicy, interesting material is. I want to move myself to tears, to explore the emotions and experiences that matter to me most. I didn't always write like that: my thesis advisor once described my early stories as "standing stiffly in patent leather shoes." I felt a real shift between writing my first book, which was more objective, and my later stories, which drew on more personal material. Cutting closer to the bone made the stories more moving.

Perhaps I'm something of an exhibitionist, getting a thrill from laying my heart bare. Sometimes I wonder whether I go too far, giving too much of myself away. But I have found that vulnerability in a writer inspires trust in readers, something I learned from Patricia Raybon. If I'm willing to reveal myself, and give others the power to criticize or ridicule me if they choose, that makes them feel safer and more open to what I have to say.