Heart Demons

charming the monsters that aren't there

I’m not a writer, which is to say I write, but I can’t write something I’m asked to write. I’ve tried writing to order. And I’ve not always failed at it. But writing to someone else’s specifications is a struggle, whereas writing as an experience, for the experience, to see what happens, to be there when it happens — that is not hard.  

A common piece of advice to writers is to carry around a little notebook, so you can write down things you see, thoughts that come to you, write it down so you don’t lose it. I tried that, and it’s not that I’ve found it useless. It is useful to have paper for those times you need to use it. But I don’t write down things I later incorporate into other things. I don’t write down clever concepts. I write the poem there and then. In any case, my poems are not really about things I can forget. 

When I decided to take my poems seriously — at first I thought of them as exercises to boost my fiction — I bought a bound notebook, the kind that looks like a book you put on a shelf. The permanence of the book will honor the poems, I told myself. I told myself I would only write completed poems in the book, having tried them out on scratch paper or in a spiral bound workbook. But it didn’t take long for me start revising “completed” poems. I adjusted my attitude — I was taking the whole process seriously, not just the product. I also decided to title the notebooks. They fill a shelf now. The last two notebooks are called “Heart” and “Demons.” If I am to start a Substack newsletter it needs a name. “Heart Demons” sounds cool, doesn’t it?  

Turns out there’s a definition for the phrase. According to the website Martial World, “'Heart Demons' … are a practitioner’s negative emotions and other mental barriers which hinder their training/cultivation.” That sounds like writer’s block, depression, barriers that aren’t imposed from without but that must be struggled against within. 

The explainer at Martial World goes on, “Almost every martial artist had a heart demon. It could be a shame that they could never forget, an irreconcilable blood hatred, something they loved too deeply, something they feared too much, or even something they pursued with all their heart; anything could become one’s heart demon!” This second part of the definition includes the possibility that what seems good — “something they pursued with all their heart” — could be a negative. “As long as a human held desires or fear, they would inevitably have heart demons.” Heart Demons, then, are just part of being human.

A Heart Demon is a passion, most usually one that gets in the way of one’s goals. But maybe it’s the goals that are the problem, and your Heart Demon is doing you a favor, diverting you down a different path, one that could prove better for you. 

Here it is, the first installment of a brand new newsletter — is it a good use of my time? Shall I be writing for an audience, or pretending to? I don’t know. We’ll see! My poetry continues to be of use to me regardless of whether there are people who want to read it. Poetry is a place I go to to experience something, to, as I said above, see what happens and be part of that. Yet I do like it when people read it. I will give this newsletter thing a try — perhaps do one a month? I might write about passions. Likely I will offer up older writings or news. I won’t be asking for money, I think. A few responses from readers would be nice. Engagement’s worth something, more than money, maybe.

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