Friday Speak Out!: Write With Your Heart; The Best Writing Advice I Received From My Father

By Jeanine DeHoney

I proclaimed I wanted to be a writer at a very young age. As I sat on the sofa in my family’s Livingroom, my imagination had free reign as I wrote stories about cute little kittens and fairies with the exception of Fridays and Saturdays.

Then, as the weekend loomed in front of me, my father who was a saxophone player and jazz aficionado, who loved listening to music teeming at the seams with the barebones of improvisation, syncopation, and a melodious rhythm, would take a  jazz album from his collection out of its sleeve and play it on our stereo console.  

I would drop everything to sit beside him, and then mirror how he attended to this music; the bobbing of his head, tapping of his feet, taking mental notes of any listening instructions he gave me. 

The main one he imparted to me was, “Always listen with your heart and not just your ears.”

So, I would, and the music I thought sounded strange as a child soon sounded inviting and soothing.

 

When I became an adult, and began my journey as a freelance writer, I realized my father’s words held significance, not just for music but for writing. I paraphrased his words some to encompass that I also needed to, “Always write with or from my heart.”

For when I did, I didn’t write to anyone else’s drumbeat. I didn’t hold back from writing what others thought should be “shrouded” or “kept hidden in the closet” particularly if it concerned a sensitive or cultural issue. I opened my heart and gave myself permission to empty my emotions on paper and let readers see the authenticity and vulnerability of who I was or who I was writing about. I stopped worrying about being judged. 

Writing with my heart allowed me to unfetter my core on the page and forge a relationship with readers who might be walking a mile in my emotive shoes.

My words; the fiction stories, the creative nonfiction essays. even my first children’s picture book, are all heart stories. They are not just slivers but full-on narratives about the complexities of love, life, family, culture, the bad entwined with the good, sadness entwined with joy, etc., just like the music I learned to appreciate as I listened with my father.  

Although I never got the chance to tell my father his advice on listening to jazz would be some of the best and most inspiring advice I got about writing, I hope he knew somehow. I hope he knew when he thumbed through my first published magazine story in my early twenties, that I followed his instructions about the heart. That I listened for the heartbeat of my stories when they hovered overhead, until they defied gravity and landed on the page. 

And from one writer to another, I pass that same advice on to you, write with or from your heart, because you are a unique wordsmith and your/our stories are oh so needed in the world we live in today.

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As a freelance writer my writing has been published in Wow: Women on Writing, Mutha Magazine, Literary Mama, Scary Mommy, Brain Child Magazine, Please See Me Literary Magazine, The Light, Jerry Jazz Magazine, Rigorous Magazine, Soul In Space, The Write Place At The Write Time, Gemini Literary Magazine, The Dirty Spoon Radio Hour and Journal, Sisters AARP,  Mahogany Blog, Carefree, Kiza Blacklit, and a fiction story in an upcoming anthology curated to spread awareness about domestic violence, “Why I Stayed," and MER literary magazine, among others. I am an essayist in anthologies by Chicken Soup For The Soul, Black Lawrence Press-"Mamas, Martyrs, and Jezebels," Black Freighter Press's- "Waiting To Exhale" and BLF Press- "Black Joy Unbound,” and in Zora’s Den anthology. I won first prize for prose for the table/feast Literary Magazine The Blossom Contest, and The Colorism Healing Contest and second place for my essay for the Light-Leaders Igniting Generational Healing and Transformation Literary Journal, and was shortlisted for a fiction story for the Embellishment Contest for Australia's Voices of Women which was performed in Australia as a monologue. I was an Honor Award winner for Sleeping Bear Press Own Voices Own Stories 2022 award season for a children's picture book, "This Sunday My Daddy Came To Church," and it was acquired for publication by Sleeping Bear Press and will be available  in August 2025. 

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Would you like to participate in Friday "Speak Out!"? Email your short posts (under 500 words) about women and writing to: marcia[at]wow-womenonwriting[dot]com for consideration. We look forward to hearing from you!
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