Welcome! I'm Aida. This is my very first article on Zen. And it's about zen in the art of writing. Not only about Bradbury's essays.
You may have read in the description of my profile that my whole life is connected with the word. That's true, since childhood I loved to read and wanted to become a writer. By the end of school, I had published my first collection of short stories for myself and friends. During 4 years I'd been studying at the faculty of linguistics and learning 3 foreign languages. By the end of the University, I had read more than two hundred books. And now I think I have something to share.
About book
"Zen in the Art of Writing" by Ray Bradbury consists of 13 essays written at various periods ( 1961-1990) in his life.
Ray Bradbury had a wonderful sense of humor, he looked at the world through the eyes of a wise and ironic man. The book contains many practical tips and examples, and also reveals the details of writing the author's favorite novels and stories. Reading that, you will know that...
Bradbury was obsessed with writing. He got up every morning and wrote at least 1,000 words a day. Throughout ten years, he wrote at least one story a week. He wrote in the rapture, in the creating ecstasy, under the influence of bright ideas. Words were burning in his mind and would not let go until he scorched the paper with them. He did not consider writing hard work, for him it was a necessity, a cure, a life.
I write all the time. I get up every morning not knowing what I'm going to do. I usually have a perception around dawn when I wake up. I have what I call the theater of morning inside my head, all these voices talking to me. When they come up with a good metaphor, then I jump out of bed and trap them before they're gone. That's the whole secret: to do things that excite you.
This is what catches the reader the most. The author's passion. This book will be interesting not only to novice writers and fans of Bradbury's works. Everyone will find something for himself in it, at least will think about what he is working for. It gives food for thought.
About writing
If the above is not enough to you to read this book, I will try to motivate a little more, and at the same time introduce you to some theses, which also connected with my personal experience:
Muse lives in our subconscious
By living a full life and watching it, reading a lot of books, getting into it and empathize so deeply with narrator or characters, you feed yourself, you make your mind richer. By practicing your writing skills, practicing again and again, and imitating good examples, you create a clean, well-lit room where the Muse will live. To feed your Muse, you need to experience an eternal hunger from childhood – an unquenchable desire to live. You can work really creatively only by filling your imagination with life and enjoying the process as a fun and exciting adventure. Throughout life, we feed our Muse with emotions, impressions, fantasies, people and events. One day, from the depths of this chaos, it gives birth to an idea for you. If you don't trust it and insist on that fact, 99% of success is in hard work – yes, it's also true, read further.
Quantity becomes quality
A sense of professional inferiority often reflects true incompetence due to lack of experience. So work, gain experience, to feel free in writing, to take to it like a duck to water. Remember, that Ray Bradbury wrote at least 1,000 words a day? You also need to write a lot and every day. You can keep a diary or blog (for example, on Zen).
Read poem
Bradbury gave an excellent quote about it:
Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don’t use often enough. Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand. And, above all, poetry is compacted metaphor or simile. Such metaphors, like Japanese paper flowers, may expand outward into gigantic shapes. Ideas lie everywhere through the poetry books, yet how rarely have I heard short story teachers recommending them for browsing.
Imitation
Imitation is an inevitable and necessary stage in the life of every writer. It's okay. Don't scold or blame yourself for the fact that your writing style is similar to someone else's. Read authors who write the way you want to write. But also read those authors who don't think the way you do – in order to get an incentive to look in a direction that you wouldn't have looked. After a while, you will inevitably develop your own unique style, which will be easily recognizable to your readers. Trust the time.
Lists of memorable words
Ray advises writing out a string of words or phrases that come to mind. You can put them together later, but in the meantime, write them down. They are needed as fishing rods that are released into our inner well and wait for some idea to bite them. Sometimes it takes years. This approach will allow you not only not to forget all your possibly brilliant ideas. It is also a path to something sincere and honest hidden under the manhole cover in your head. Such lists, drawn from the depths of your own consciousness, can help you find yourself, just as Bradbury found himself after a long search.
Give freedom to your characters
Don't think about the plot in advance. Give freedom to your characters, let them write their own story. This is my case. One day I realized that my characters can do all the work for me, if I don't interfere with their fantasies and fears, if I give them their own mind and understanding themselves.
And there are the parting words from the American writer of more than eight hundred different literary works, including several novels and novellas, hundreds of short stories, dozens of plays, a number of articles, notes and poems:
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 on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
Don't be shy! No stress and fear. Read more, write more, try more.
Write from the heart,
Aida