Writing: With Heart or Mind

Hello everyone! I have been thinking about something Malcolm Gladwell said on his Revisionist Podcast in the episode The King of Tears more so after reading Terry Pratchett’s Reaper Man. He said when someone puts their heart into their songs you can hear it. And I’m sure that applies to books as well. You can read the passion and love behind the text. Such a text differs from something written with a pattern or proofed concept in mind which is done by filling a checklist. I think many of us have read such books, where everything is in their place, but there is something wrong, and we don’t know what, or the text just don’t kindle emotions.

I feel like I’m in the stage with my book where I’m too wrapped inside my head and don’t let the words come out with the playful tone. I think too much the meanings I’m putting there and do I get the concepts just right that I have forgotten to laugh and have fun. I’m over-thinking everything, and I’m not sure how to find my way out. Maybe the fear of failure has come back. That I can’t laugh at myself or what I’m doing. I’m taking everything too seriously. But how should I change my perspective? I want to feel again the words coming out of me and not to stress if this or this word is better while forgetting the forest from the trees.

Or it is all the I, I, I, me, me, me, you can find even in this post. That I have this perfect ego to protect and to keep intact which demands that everything I do is perfect and intelligent and mind fucking blowing, but that is a fool’s errand. I read somewhere that greatest happiness comes from doing for others. And that applies to writing as well. With the first book, I wrote it because I had something to say and give something of mine to the readers and the second book came to be with the same idea, but now it is about perfection and about excelling, and I have lost the forest.

How can you find the forest? I’m afraid I don’t have an answer. You see, I’m stuck.

Thank you for reading!

P.S. Here is the link for Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast (the episode I’m talking about is in season 2 episode 6) Revisionist History.