You Can Make Anything by Writing

Evan Swensen
October 6, 2025

C.S. Lewis Once Wrote, “You Can Make Anything by Writing.”

It’s a short line, but it carries a universe inside it.

Clive Staples Lewis—better known as C.S. Lewis—understood writing not as an act of escape, but as creation itself. The same imagination that brought forth The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity was rooted in a belief that words could build truth as tangibly as a carpenter shapes wood. His writings offered refuge, challenge, and illumination, born from a life marked by pain, discovery, and faith.

Writing from the Wound

Lewis knew loss early. His mother died when he was nine. Grief settled over his childhood like the gray Irish fog outside his window in Belfast. At boarding school, the cold halls echoed with cruelty and loneliness. His father, though loving, was distant—incapable of comforting a child adrift in sorrow. Out of that ache grew a boy who found solace in books. Words became both shield and sword, a way to make sense of absence.

Years later, he fought in the trenches of World War I. Mud, rain, and artillery fire surrounded him. He was wounded in combat, hospitalized, and haunted by memories of death. For many, such trauma would silence faith. For Lewis, it became the raw material from which meaning could be forged. His later works—The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed—emerged from these experiences, confronting suffering not as a puzzle to be solved, but as a reality to be redeemed. He made honesty his language, writing from wounds that never quite healed.

The Unexpected Companion

For much of his life, Lewis imagined he would remain alone. Then came Joy Davidman—an American poet, fiercely intelligent and full of life. Their friendship began in letters, proof of his belief in the power of written words to build understanding. Their relationship, often debated and deeply human, grew into love late in his life.

When Joy fell ill with cancer, Lewis faced love’s shadowed side. A Grief Observed would again reveal his heart—bare, bewildered, and searching for God amid sorrow. Yet even in grief, he created meaning from pain, demonstrating how love and loss coexist in the same sacred space. Writing became his way to honor the truth of both.

Impact on Society

Lewis’s influence stretches far beyond literary circles. His apologetic works—Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce—spoke to generations wrestling with doubt. He used reason wrapped in story, intellect softened by imagination. During World War II, his BBC radio talks brought comfort to a nation under siege, transforming abstract theology into living faith.

His fiction, meanwhile, opened spiritual doors for readers of all ages. The Chronicles of Narnia wove moral and theological ideas into myth and adventure. In the courage of Lucy, the betrayal of Edmund, and the sacrifice of Aslan, readers saw reflections of conscience, sin, and grace. Lewis never preached from a pulpit; he invited the reader into a story where truth could be felt before it was understood.

His voice bridged belief and doubt, intellect and emotion, reason and wonder. He reminded readers that faith was not an escape from the world but a way of living fully within it.

C.S. Lewis’s legacy endures not merely through sales or scholarship, but through the quiet transformation of minds and hearts. His words taught generations that writing is not the act of recording what is seen, but revealing what is unseen. He believed imagination was not childish—it was divine, a reflection of creation itself.

Writers often measure success by acclaim or audience. Lewis was measured by authenticity. He once said, “We read to know we are not alone.” The same could be said of writing—it binds us together across distance and time. His life reminds every writer to take words seriously, to use them as instruments of light rather than noise.

Read The Chronicles of Narnia not only for the fantasy, but for the faith behind it. Explore Mere Christianity to hear reason shaped by conviction. Let Lewis’s words remind you why writing matters—to create, to connect, and to make something worth existing. Pick up your pen and make something true, something good, something that endures after the ink dries.

Stories like these remind us how words shape lives—how they steady us, stir us, and spark change. The Power of Authors, by Evan and Lois Swensen, carries this conviction to its core. More than a manual on writing, it is a meditation on purpose, showing how every word—whether in a novel, a thank-you note, or a simple message—can echo far beyond its moment. To celebrate its release, you’re invited to a book signing party on Saturday, October 11, 2025, from noon to 3 PM at 8370 Eleusis Drive, Anchorage, Alaska. Copies are available through Amazon (link), Barnes & Noble, and everywhere good books are sold. For an autographed copy, visit this link.