Call for Art
We’re Looking for Art to Feature in these Newsletters
We do not use AI to generate images. We support human artists. And we’re always looking for great art by real artists to feature in our newsletters! If you are an artist (or know of one), please leave a comment with a link to your art. Each piece we feature goes to more than 100,000 inboxes and is properly attributed with backlinks to the artist’s website.
(See Clintavo’s Curated Corner after the article)
We have another post today by Eugene Terekhin, the man and the mind behind the publication Philosophy of Language.
Eugene is a regular contributing writer to The BoldBrush Letter.
C.S. Lewis’ Advice on Good Writing: Hearing the Eternal Story in a Grain of Sand
Advice #3 from C.S. Lewis on how to become a better writer goes like this:
“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.”
Why?
When we write or read with our eyes, we focus on individual words – without necessarily perceiving the whole. When we write or read with our ears, it means we hear the sound – the music – of the text.
There is a vast difference between reading and writing words and reading and writing the sound. Sound is something we must hear before we can transmit it. And we must hear it as a whole. When we merely read individual words in a sentence, we often miss the sound of the story.
And if we miss the sound, we miss the Music. When we miss the Music, we miss the Logos.
According to C.S. Lewis, a good writer doesn’t merely write words – they write sound. He says, “if it doesn’t sound nice, try it again.” Every creator knows that there a music to their every brush stroke, a rhythm to their every sentence, a melody to their every conversation. A good creator must first grasp the melody and then pour it out on the canvas.
What is the melody of what I am creating?
C.S. Lewis was once asked if he had devised The Chronicles of Narnia with a goal in mind (like writing a children’s Gospel or something). He replied,
‘The Lion’ all began with a picture of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood. This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself, ‘Let’s try to make a story about it.’
It was Mr. Tumnus who called him. Lewis heard the sound – the music of the story. He grasped the Whole. A truly creative act begins when we grasp the universe in a grain of sand. To quote William Blake,
“To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.”
Some people look at a grain of sand and see… a grain of sand. Others look at a grain of sand and see the Infinity. Some people listen to a story and hear nothing but words. Others listen to a story and hear the ETERNAL STORY ringing through every sentence.
To create is to hear the ETERNAL STORY in every word, in every brush stroke, in every meal, in every conversation. We grasp it by the ear. It strikes us as Music, Rhythm, Melody. We begin creating from that point. That simple point – the Punctum as Dante called it – opens into an amazing world before our eyes.
Unless we see Heaven in a wild flower, we don’t know what the wild flower is. We can only know what on earth we are seeing before our eyes if we first “see” it in Heaven. A true creator always creates from the vision of the Whole – never from individual blocks, words, or strokes of the brush.
Holding infinity in the palm of our hand means to grasp the Logos of divine creation. Only then are we able to sub-create.
PS — Editor’s Note: Please support artists and help us get more exposure for the artists featured in this newsletter by clicking the “Like” icon ❤️, by clicking the “Restack” icon 🔁, or by leaving a comment. The more engagement we get, the more widely these images get shown. Help us support human artists and push back against the encroachment of AI!
FASO Loves Casey McKee’s paintings!
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Clintavo’s Curated Corner
We’re Looking for Great Art!
If you know of a great piece of real visual art (no AI art) that we should consider for future illustration of our articles or to feature in Clintavo’s Curated Corner, please click the button below and leave a sentence or two explaining what you like about a piece with a link to it on the web. It may be your own art or someone else’s (please do not send via email as we are much less likely to see or respond to those, thank you):
PS - Wouldn’t You Love to work with a website hosting company that actually promotes their artists?
Click the button below to start working with an art website host that actually cares about art.
No AI Zone: Everything written in this post (and all our posts) is written 100% by flesh and blood humans
We do not use AI images with our writing. We prefer to feature and provide more exposure for human artists. If you know of a great piece of art we should consider, please leave a comment with a link to it. All featured images are properly attributed with backlinks to the artist’s website. You can help support human artists and push back against AI by liking or restacking this piece by clicking the “Like” icon ❤️, by clicking the “Restack” icon 🔁 (or by leaving a comment).
Okay I can do that ~ art and writing should be holding hands.
https://www.donnaspearlauzon.com/
What a beautiful scene!