Dear Wormwood,
Have you heard of The Screwtape Letters?
This month has been full of work, school, ink, acrylic, oil, watercolors, and copious amounts of editing (more on that in a second). Here in Missouri, the trees are going out in style, lighting up the area with glorious shades of oranges, yellows, and reds. This week the ground was greeted by frost and I’m looking forward to when we’ll be lighting fires again in the wood stove.
Today I want to highlight one of my favorite books, The Screwtape Letters, but first I want to give you all a couple of writing updates! For one, I moved on to the next round of that writing contest that I entered awhile back…which means that I’m among the top 25ish of the young adult division. I believe we’ll find out who the finalists are tomorrow, so I’m excited and nervous about that. Anyway, that’s the update for book 1 in my series.
Another big update concerning book 3! This last month I started flying through editing and, as of two days ago, book 3 has gone through its first full revision! This is a big deal because now it’s ready for alpha readers to take a look at it, which is exciting. If you’re ever interested in reading any of the drafts of my books, feel free to reach out—I love to hear feedback.
So what’s next? Well, if you were around me at all for the last couple months of 2024, you know that I decided to see if I could draft a 120,000 page book by the end of the year. That’s what happened with book 3. My entire series is going to be five books and so far I’ve succeeded in writing one every year. Well, I haven’t started book four yet…and 2025 is starting to wrap up. This means that I have a lot of early mornings, late nights, and many, many cups of coffee in my future. I’m excited to start writing book four this week and we’ll see if I succeed in my race against time in order to get the first draft done by the end of the year. This one is going to be exciting, with my characters really stepping into their roles. Of course, exact events are subject to change as the writing starts but as of now book four may or may not include: castle heists with high risks and high rewards, desperate rides across the country, rebel operations, and the battle for my character’s haven in the mountains…with some twists and turns along the way.
Now, let me introduce you to C.S Lewis’s book, The Screwtape Letters. This book is a collection of letters written as a senior devil giving advice to his nephew, Wormwood, a neophyte tempter. This book is very different than a lot of Lewis’s theological works, and certainly has a fantastical element to it as the entire book focuses on spiritual warfare. However, readers are often astonished by the ease at which they’re able to understand the points Lewis is trying to get across.
The book is full of rhetoric that is surprisingly persuasive. In fact, Lewis’ inspiration for these letters came from a speech of Hitler’s the Lewis listened to on the radio at the beginning of World War 2. After hearing the speech, he was incredibly disconcerted by the way that the passion and charisma of the Nazi ideology was able to get into his head. It was after this experience that he started writing these letters.
During the course of the book, Wormwood receives advice from his Uncle Screwtape concerning a ‘patient’ of his. Wormwood’s job is to get his patient safely to hell and Screwtape is full of advice. He refers often to ‘the enemy,’ which is Christ, and emphasizes his opinion that the most effective road to Hell is the gradual one—meaning that it’s far more effective to lead a soul away from Christ one small step at a time, so much so that they don’t realize how far they’ve fallen until they’re too late.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:
“It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. ”
“There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.”
So, if you haven’t ever picked up this book, I highly recommend it. And if you already have read it, I invite you to check out the Oh Hello’s album, Dear Wormwood. It’s an indie-folk album written by a brother and sister, with The Screwtape Letters as the theme. You can check it out here:
Let’s see. Besides that, I don’t have much more for you this month. I pray that you all will be able to find some time to enjoy the outdoors because the weather had truly been glorious. If you have any prayer requests or ideas for other books you’d like to see me highlight, let me know!
Thank you for reading my newsletter!
-Autumn