C.S. Lewis' Advice on Writing

I've been working on a final paper, and part of that process has included browsing through some of Lewis' letters.  Here is one I found addressed to "a schoolgirl in America" on December 14th, 1959.

1. Turn off the Radio [or for us, Facebook, TV, Twitter, Pandora, Cell Phones.  Wow it certainly got more complicated, didn't it?]
2. Read all the good books you can, and avoid nearly all magazines
3. Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye.  You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken.  If it does not sound nice, try again.
4. Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else.  (Notice this means that if you are interested only in writing you will never be a writer, because you will have nothing to write about...)
5. Take great pains to be clear.  Remember that though you start by knowing what you mean, the reader doesn't, and a single ill-chosen word may lead him to a total misunderstanding.  In a story it is terribly easy just to forget that you have not told the reader something that he wants to know- the whole picture is so clear in your own mind that you forget that it isn't the same in his.
6. When you give up a bit of work don't (unless it is hopelessly bad) throw it away.  Put it in a drawer.  It may come in useful later.  Much of my best work, or what I think my best, is the re-writing of things begun and abandoned years earlier.
7. Don't use a typewriter.  The nose will destroy your sense of rhythm, which still needs years of training. [I wonder what Lewis would say about computers.]
8. Be sure you know the meaning (or meanings) of very word you use

Just thought I would share!

Thinking about Paper Topics

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."
— C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves) 

 

This quote, coming from The Four Loves, has been one of my favorites for years.  Having now read The Four Loves, I am grateful for the context that gives.  

I have a lot of thoughts when it comes to this topic of suffering and love.  This last summer I spent three months living with a Tibetan Buddhist family in Dharamsala, India.  While I was there I had a lot of opportunities to study Buddhism and Eastern religious philosophy.  Buddha taught that all life leads to suffering so long as you are attached to anything-whether that be your own individual identity, possessions, or personal relationships you feel attachment towards beyond just a general sense of the word "love."  This was the most difficult aspect of the religion for me to swallow.  To me, it feels like a way to cheat the importance of experiencing life.  The joy along with the often inevitable pain.

In this sense, I agree with Lewis.  I believe that to love and be hurt by that love is much better than to not love at all.  As I first started thinking about different paper ideas, the topic of Christian marriage tended to pop up, but this aspect of it seems to be a little more engaging.  Even though it is the end of the semester, and I am busy working on finals and my thesis, I want to make this paper a good representation of all that I learned throughout the semester.