134: Write through the heart or you’re to blame.

If you’re a writer, more than likely you have a story you want to tell. Whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction, a story is what connects your words to your reader’s heart.

In today’s episode, we’re talking about connecting with our readers on an emotional level. If we’re writing to just write and not tell a story that conveys the truth, we should set down the pencil and walk away.

When I began this blog, I had a lot of passion. But it’s time went on I began to feel it as more of an obligation than something I was enjoying. You may have noticed that over the past two months I have hardly published on this blog. The reason, I’ve been needing to get my head in the right place.

As somebody who teaches about writing, I begin to notice I was writing for the sake of writing. I was producing content simply for the sake of producing content.

Writers, write, and if we’re simply writing without passion without art we’re just writing to fill pages with mindless words. Maybe you’re sitting on the couch thinking, I don’t know what I want to write or I don’t think I have something valuable to say. Let me tell you the dig down deep and ask yourself one question, what message has God put on my heart?

I want to give you three things to think about today.

1. Writing is about soul-searching.

Remember the Bon Jovi song, “You Gave Love a Bad Name?” I titled this article Write Through the Heart or You Are to Blame.

It’s a nice play on words but the truth of the matter is if we don’t dig down deep and discover what makes us tick, or words will be written in vain.

Writers need to soul search. It’s the one thing we can do to navigate a world in which are words live. King David wrote this song in Psalm 1[39:23]; “Search me O God and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts.”

This is where soul-searching begins, it begins by asking ourselves the question; what’s in your heart? Because if you’re going to communicate your message to the world who needs to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you need to know who your heart belongs to.

Take a moment, dig down deep, and ask God to Search Your Heart.

2. Writing is about connecting emotionally with your words.

One of the things that I believe sets me apart is the fact that I don’t talk a lot about the mechanics of writing. My focus is to talk about the heart or the mindset of writing. However, if we don’t connect emotionally with what we write, our readers won’t either.

It’s one thing to write a story and be okay with it, it’s another to fall in love with that same story and feel their pain or emotions.

I recently watched an episode of the* Good Doctor.* Surgical resident, Shaun Murphy, learns and a good friend of his is dying. Distraught, Sean goes out of his way to try to help his friend. This was an emotionally-charged episode that brought tears to my eyes.

Are writing needs to have and invoke the same kind of emotions within our readers. They need to draw app on their own human understanding of life and discover Something Beautiful in the process.

3. Writing needs to be all about your readers and you.

One thing you will commonly hear in the entrepreneurial podcast and blog world is this, don’t write what you want to write, write for your readers. While I agree, I also believe you have to be invested in what you write and being love with what you write.

Mainly, this blog has been about writers and writing. And while this will remain the focus of the blog, there is a segment of my readers who are looking for something a little more.

Now, I don’t believe in catering but I also believe in appealing to the masses. People have asked me the focus some of my writing on more devotional and teaching content. At the same time, I’ve had a lot of writers ask me how do I write using Scrivener.

Those are in two very different camps and I’m going to be catering to both parties.

What is to come for the blog?

All of what I mentioned above is where I’m aiming to sit for this block. In other words, my goal is to both cater to you as the reader and to my own desires as a writer.

Moving forward here is what you’re going to see a JBSISAM.com.

• An online learning course to help writers focus on what they do best, write.
• The continuation of the J-B sisam show.
• The Edition of more spiritual and gospel-centered devotionals.
• And down the road, a brand new website.

Keep listening to their show or reading this blog for more updates.