Review: Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

I was given this book as a gift a few years ago, and I just barely got around to reading it.

I've read a lot from Ray Bradbury, but I've never read non-fiction from him, so this was a treat. This book is full of writing inspiration, humor, and details about him that I never knew.

His Writing Habit

What impressed me most about Bradbury was his writing habit. For ten years he wrote a short story every week, and each week he sent it out to a publisher. That's a lot of writing, but you know what it did? It made him a stronger writer. He had writing the short story down to an art. He eventually learned what to do, and he became a master at it.

"All during my early twenties I had the following schedule," Bradbury writes. "On Monday morning I wrote the first draft of a new story. One Tuesday I did a second draft. On Wednesday a third. On Thursday a fourth. On Friday a fifth. And on Saturday at noon I mailed out the sixth and final draft to New York. Sunday? I thought about all the wild ideas scrambling for my attention..."

I love how each day had a purpose. As a planner myself, I see the beauty in this. It somehow seems more manageable when it's broken down like this, doesn't it?

Bradbury continues, "If this all sound mechanical, it wasn't. My ideas drove me to it, you see. The more I did, the more I wanted to do. You grow ravenous. You run fevers. You know exhilarations. You can't sleep at night, because your beast-creature ideas want out and turn you in your bed. It is a grand way to live."

As I read about his writing habit, I started to think about my own (or the lack thereof). I began to think that maybe if I could write as much as Bradbury did, even for just a year, maybe I could start to make more progress with my writing career. And that got me thinking even more. What if I started The Bradbury Challenge? Maybe start slowly - one short story a month for a year - and work my way from there. In fact, it could be bigger than myself, inviting other writers to join in - kind of like how NaNoWriMo does it. If you'd be interested in something like that for next year (2018), let me know!

Finding Inspiration & Feeding Muses

I've always loved the idea of muses. It probably stems from watching Disney's Hercules as a child. Those muses were my favorite part. I mean, come on, they sang the best songs.

So, how did Bradbury come up with all his ideas? You'd think he'd run out of story ideas writing one story a week for a decade, but that wasn't the case.

"...ideas lie everywhere, like apples fallen and melting in the grass for lack of wayfaring strangers with an eye and a tongue for beauty, whether absurd, horrific, or genteel."

He made lists of words as way of inspiration, which sounds so simple. And maybe it is. Maybe we're all missing the boat here. The lists would consist of words like skeleton, old woman, lake, coffin, and so on. Take a look at how it worked for Bradbury.

"I began to run through those lists, pick a noun, and then sit down to write a long poem-prose-essay on it. Somewhere along the middle of the page, or perhaps on the second page, the prose poem would turn into a story. Which is to say a character suddenly appeared and said, 'That's me'; or, 'That's an idea I like!' And the character would then finish the tale for me."

Easy enough, right?

What it Means to Be a Writer

Bradbury provides some fantastic quotes about what it means to be a writer. When I read these, they hit home. I'm nowhere near Ray Bradbury's level, but now I know that we were both meant to write.

• "Not to write,  for many of us,  is to die."

• "But what would happen is that the world would catch up with and try to sicken you. If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy, or both. You must stay drunk of writing so reality cannot destroy you."

• "If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer....For the first thing a writer should be is - excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms."
  

• "We are cups, quietly and constantly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out."