Heart Art: Writing with Purpose

There are times, when my very right-sided brain tiptoes to that great divide and suddenly plunges its colorful toes into the waters of word count and spreadsheets and structure. I'll admit, the chill hits almost immediately, my pulsing creative juices freeze, and I wonder if I've committed to a business I'll never master completely.

My brain just wants to play with the colors of words, the textures of scenes, and the weaving of character journey. My fingers itch to get the words out, the essence out, the glorious swirling in my heart out.
But...
If I focus on the word count, the hours, the deadlines--THE NUMBERS--then I may as well turn off the writing light in my heavily one-sided brain and walk away from my story.

Of course, there is a delicate web of all these things coexisting. And I've yet to lack in word count, miss a deadline, or not gain something from "roughly" plotting out my chapters. However, if I am not careful, I get so tangled up in the overwhelming spin of numbers, my love for the craft is suffocated.

Maybe it's because I've tasted the reward of allowing my heart to overflow in my writing without inhibition? It's during those moments when I trust God, and write whatever comes through my fingertips, when I keep my heart bowed down and my eyes up to the One who guides me, that art of writing bursts upon the page.

Over this past year, I've written, rewritten, and edited three different stories of mine. They have different characters, different themes, different settings--even different time periods--but the journey I've taken through each of them, is the same.

The gift I've received as I allowed my heart to flow in the depths of the plot, has been a glowing purpose, deeper than anything I
could have come up with in an outline or a chart.

This past year I have found that my greatest joy isn't in the completion of the story, but in the realization that those bursts of creativity somehow thread together and when it's all flipped over, they reveal a very purposeful journey within my story's bounds.

Perhaps, the purpose is the very center of a creative session, the very essence of what makes art beautiful. Purpose is what keeps a patron staring and wondering at a piece of art for hours on end--without worrying about the hours spent, isn't it? Analyzing, deciphering, wondering about the artist's intent--about the whisper of the human condition--about the intricacy of a brushstroke with so much power bulging in its meaning.

When I write from the heart, casting aside any thought or concern for the numbers, I am an artist creating. And somehow, when I've poured out my words in complete obedience to the One who fills my heart, my story elements fit like a puzzle with this surprise purpose, and this thing we call story...

Or what I'd like to call, Heart Art.

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Angie Dicken is a mom of four children and lives in the Midwest with her Texas Aggie sweetheart. An ACFW member since 2010, she writes historical, historical romance, and dabbles in contemporary romance. Her debut, The Outlaw's Second Chance from Harlequin Love Inspired Historical releases in September of 2017, and her novel, My Heart Belongs in Castle Gate, Utah from Barbour, releases in November 2017. Angie is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of The Steve Laube Agency. 

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