When you write from the heart, you “wear your heart on your sleeve”– so-to-speak.  What this means is that you speak in hyperbole, exaggeration, metaphorical language.  Think of the dialogue in a soap opera or old dramatic film.  This is the voice of the heart.

Sample 1

I sit at a table at Starbuck’s.  The seat is incredibly hard, as if I am sitting on concrete.  My butt is bound to be bruised by the time I am finished typing this piece up.  Behind me sits a man with a terrible cough.  It’s not exactly a cough. It’s kind of like a tick that’s like a cough or clearing of his throat.  He sounds like a dying bird who is squawking his last breath. Every few seconds he squawks and chokes and then clears his throat, which doesn’t sound phlegmy at all but dry like crinkly paper.  It’s unbearably annoying.  I really would like to turn around and dump my hot cocoa on his head, steaming and milky all over his face.  Maybe that would shut him up.