Write about a heart that wouldn’t quit.
As I sat at my keyboard staring at the nothingness displaying on my monitor, I became very aware that sometimes something besides a keen and determined mind might be necessary to crank out a story. So I thought to myself, “What if I made this prompt autobiographical? What if I just wrote something from the heart instead of the brain? What would that be like?”
Well given the poor track record that brain was having, I thought why not, “Take it away, heart.” And here’s what heart came up with.
“Brain”, said Heart, “sometimes I think (if I could think) that you’re highly overrated. As I see it (if I could see), you think too much, feel too little. And that’s where I come in. All of the bards and poets that last, last in the hearts of man. They wrote poems and stories that moved people to tears, inspired them to accomplish great deeds. They didn’t write sonnets or sagas about splitting the atom. They took on telling the tales of daring do all the way from The Little Engine that Could through to Les Miserables and Dante’s Inferno. They shot their arrows at the heart, not the head. I’ve been told that the best writers picked up their pens and almost went unconscious letting the inner voice (that’s me!) push the ink out on to the paper. Then they read over what they had written and wept at the beauty. This is what heart can do.”
“So when things are getting a bit cloudy up there and you’ve thought yourself around and around into such a tight spiral that you can see the back of your head, tell Lungs to take a deep breath, count to 10, and turn the job over to me.”
“I won’t promise you a coherent essay about the ills of mankind and how to solve them. I won’t promise you a clever mystery that will make you the next Stieg Larsson. What I promise you is that I will tackle whatever mission you throw my way with all my heart and that I will never quit on you. Ever.”
“I know that you’ve taken me for granted but that’s ok. As well as think up all sorts of nifty things, you also have to tell all the other parts what to do, including me. So thanks for that and it’s been a privilege to support you. But from time to time, take a break and turn things over to me. We’ll make an unconquerable duo.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Heather says:
In a story that just spills (effortlessly?) out of your "pen", you define the difference between Heart and Brain in the writer's process. And in the end, somehow I FEEL this story more than understand it.
Your "keen and determined" Brain and your philosophical Heart make great characters in this study. They are highly sympathetic characters and I feel like hugging them both. Even Lungs comes across as a valued member of the team.
I loved how The Little Engine that Could got in there with Dante's Inferno.
It's so enchanting I have to go now and read it again.
(Oh, yeah, re punctuation: When the same character keeps talking through more than one paragraph of dialogue, you use an OPEN quote but not a CLOSED quote for each paragraph. Until he's finished talking.)
Very clever Rick. I can see you at your computer, your heart talking to your brain. I love the concept and I love the examples you’ve used, comparing logical brain things to creative stuff. And fancy bringing lungs into the equation too.
I’m not sure what else to say. It’s just such a clever idea.
Eve says:
Yup, you wrote the dialogue between heart and head, that division that creates so much heartache ;)
And, you lifted your head and opened your heart to your own grappling with writer's block. We've all had it and can identify with the courage and tenacity it takes to see something through. Even when your head keeps butting in to tell you to butt out of your commitment.
I liked the way the Humble Heart shows up as incredibly wise organ which you can depend on to get through life.
Post a Comment