Writing From the Heart

LET YOUR GLOW SHOW!! is the bedrock for everything Ruthie Lewis writes and speaks about. She is an Author, Speaker & Life Coach. 

Ruthie resides in Edmond, OK and is the mother of two amazing grown sons, and a daughter who was a life-long dancer and brought light into the lives of everyone who knew her, and now dances with Jesus. Find out more about her at www.ruthielewis.com. 

My love affair with books began early.  The school or local library was a world beckoning the search for “happily ever after.”  I fell in love with those words, and adventures that led to them.  I couldn’t resist the urge to try putting words to paper, a kid’s imagination.

So I thought. 

Even though I knew I really enjoyed it, and the words flowed easily, it wasn’t until later adulthood that I recognized it as a passion.  The story’s not uncommon but what do you do with a passion even after you recognize it?

My adult-discovered and recovered passion only a blossoming bud, I sat writing in my journal one night as I was finding my way through dark, gut-wrenching circumstances, and wondered how many of these books with blank pages I’d filled with words penned from my heart.  As I thumbed through the pages, I realized that I’d never stopped writing – I just hadn’t let stories in my imagination have any play, let alone find their way to paper. 

How could I get all the heart that was in these journals in book form?

During this time - after several years of gasping for breath and reinventing my life - I was in the process of becoming a Life Coach.  My experiences and all that I’d learned were recorded in my journals, so it was logical to envision my first book as non-fiction. 

I had also pursued studying writing and was pleasantly surprised when my love for fiction began to re-emerge and was told by my writing mentor that “You have a bent for fiction.” Then, came the moment that sealed the deal.  When the fiction portion of the study was nearing an end, I received an email from my writing mentor: “Wow!! I so enjoyed reading this.  Your writing is getting so strong.  I’m not kidding.  You keep persevering because you have a future here, and I don’t say that to just anyone!”

That was the gust of wind beneath my wings; it allowed me to let my love for fiction live, while a whirlwind of light-bulb moments flickered like fireflies in the night sky – one of which was that Jesus himself spoke to the hearts of people in parables; stories.

My non-fiction metamorphosed into fiction.  How the title “Fireflies” came into being is another story for another day.

Whether you write fiction, or non-fiction, traditional or self-publishing, the first commandment of writing is:

WRITE, letting words of your heart free and onto the pages.  If you feel creative release as opposed to completing a chore; if your passion to share a message overrides the dread of sitting in front of the computer and forcing a certain number of words, then people will want to read your writing.  I’ve come across so many books that may be clever, written by a recognizable name, and may be entertaining, interesting and contain knowledgeable content, but if it’s not pages from the author’s heart, it won’t carve its way into the reader’s heart.  I am part of an online group that was asked the question:  What book most impacted your life? The result was a huge list of great books, which confirmed what I have found: The books people talk about the most are those that impacted the emotions and thinking patterns of a life.

Because heart to heart sells books.