The Writer's Heart

The written word. It is such an amazing thing. It has such power to convey thoughts, ideas and emotions. It can bring laughter and tears. It can give hope. It can allow people to travel to places and times they never dreamed possible. The written word offers to the reader a great range of experiences and emotions brought to them by the hand of another.

All writing is an interaction of two parties, the author and the audience. The author writes with hopes of conveying thoughts and feelings to the audience. He opens his soul a little, bares his own private thoughts, for better or worse, for the sake of the audience. The audience comes bringing their own set of expectations, bringing their own baggage, thoughts, and ideas as would any participant in any relationship.

When the connection is made, the author hopes he had done a good job of conveying that which he wants the audience to feel or understand. Yet, inevitably, there will be times that the audience, sometimes as a whole but usually as an individual, will come away from the connection with a different view or mood than the author was intending. This can be due to the authors' lack of success at conveying the desired mood or due to the audiences prior baggage. As with any relationship, there is usually more than one party that brings "fault" to the miscommunication. However, at the end of the night, the audience leaves the interaction with their ideas and thoughts on the authors work, and the author is left bare, alone and sometimes hurt by results of his efforts.

When one writes for another to see, he opens a part of himself to another that can never really be closed.