What I’m Reading – Zen In The Art of Writing

Zen In The Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury (1990) – A celebration of writing from a master of the 20^th Century.

Books on writing fell into two categories for me. The “This is How To Write” category, and books designed to inspire writers category. This slim book (just 158 pages in a small paperback) falls into that second group. Bradbury loves writing and shares that love along with stories about some of his best-known stories (“Fahrenheit 451” and “The Martian Chronicles” get a lot of discussion). He doesn’t present his own experience as a prescription for how the rest of us should pursue our craft. The goal is to help the reader find their own formula for success.

Bradbury’s model is hard for most of us to follow anyway. His career took off in the heyday of the magazine. There was an enormous market for short stories and he mastered the art of cranking them out at a tremendous rate. A short story a week. Every week. For at least ten years. First draft on Monday, second on Tuesday, then third, fourth and fifth on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Sixth draft on Saturday and into the mail it went. He spent Sundays considering ideas for the next story. I would love to work on that schedule, let alone turn out the quality of work he created. Bradbury was able from early in his career to make writing his full-time job. Selling two stories a month kept the wolf from the door. He says he sold 44 stories in 1940 and made $800. That was a lot more money than it is today, but he was still only making enough to pay the bills. Most of us will understand that end of the writing profession.

With the stories are Bradbury’s go to ideas for writing. He believed in making lists of writing prompts for himself. He began with lists of things he liked and didn’t like, titles, descriptions, nouns. Anything that occurred to him, that appealed to him, went into a list. Then he would circle back to those lists for years. Looking for inspiration, looking for the idea that was ready to go now. Ideas that had had the time to sit, mature and grow inside his mind. Out of those lists came a hundred brilliant stories. Of Mars, dead people, his archetype of small town America, and so many other places, people and things. His process covers both the mechanical routines of writing and the inspiration that fuels it.
There are bits of the “How To Write” mindset here, for those who want clearer instructions. Begin by making those lists! Later, in the chapter that gives the book its title, Bradbury offers up four concepts that form his understanding of what any creator must do to create. They are “Work”, “Relaxation”, “Don’t Think”, and “Further Relaxation”. I will leave you to discover on your own his deeper thoughts on those words. I would summarize them by saying that Bradbury felt that creators are often their own worst enemies. We need to get out of our own way.
My takeaway is that Ray Bradbury wants us to immerse ourselves in what we do when we create. To be both the technician and the artist. The result is a book I find deeper and more intriguing than many others. It is a philosophy lesson for writers. A vital reminder in an age that pushes us toward simplistic, mechanical creative processes.

What book on writing do you keep coming back to, and recommending to others?  Leave me a comment with a suggestion!