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#nowreading Ray Bradburyβs Zen In The Art Of Writing. I thought Fahrenheit 451 was alright, but I really became a fan after reading The Martian Chronicles. ZITAOW was a big influence for me a few years ago and Iβm excited to revisit it https://t.co/WK3ZXK5B92
Bradbury opens with "sometimes I am stunned at my capacity as a 9yo, to understand my entrapment and escape it." He describes how he was criticized by schoolmates for reading comics, but then decided they were idiots &dove right back in. "I love that 9yo, whoever in hell he was."
"What does writing teach us? 1. reminds us that we *are* alive; that it is a privilege, not a right. we must earn life once it has been awarded. art cannot save us from wars, [...] death, but it can revitalize us 2. writing is survival. not to write, for many of us, is to die."
"The horrors are not to be denied. Who amongst us has not had a cancer-dead friend? Which family exists where some relative has not been killed or maimed by the automobile? I know of none. [...] The list is endless and crushing if we do not creatively oppose it."
"Zest. Gusto. How rarely one hears these words used. How rarely do we see people living [...]. If I were asked to name the things that shape [a writer's] material and rush him along the road to where he wants to go, I could only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto."
"You have your list of favorite writers; I have mine. [...] Think of all these names and you think of big or little, but nonetheless important, zests, appetites, hungers. Think of Shakespeare &Melville and you think of thunder, lightning, wind. [...] They knew fun in their work."
"No matter if creation came hard here and there along the way, or what illnesses and tragedies touched their most private lives. [...] Their hatreds and despairs were reported with a kind of love." "The best Jazz says, "Gonna live forever; don't believe in death."
"If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. [...] You are so busy keeping one eye on the commercial market, or one ear peeled [...] that you are not being yourself. You don't even know yourself."
"For the first thing a writer should be isβexcited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it'd be better for his health."
"How long has it been since you wrote a story where your real love or hatred somehow got onto the paper? [...] dared release a cherished prejudice so it slammed the page like a lightning bolt?" What are the best & worst things in your life, & when will you whisper or shout them?
"Irritations and angers aside, what about loves? What do you love most in the world? The big & little things. A trolley car, a pair of tennis shoes? These, at one time when were children, were invested with magic for us. [...] The energy of [...] summer storms lay in the shoes."
"Find a character, like yourself, who will want something or not want something, with all his heart. Give him running orders. Shoot him off. Then follow as fast as you can go. The character, in his great love, or hate, will rush you through to the end of the story...
"Tom Wolfe ate the world and vomited lava. Dickens dined at a different table every hour of his life. Molière, tasting society, turned to pick up his scalpel, as did Pope and Show. Everywhere you look in the literary cosmos, the great ones are busy loving and hating."
"RUN FAST, STAND STILL. In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the ONLY style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping."
"In between the scurries and flights, what? Be a chameleon, ink-blend, chromosome change with the landscape. Be a pet rock, lie with the dust, rest in the rainwater in the filled barrel by the drainspout outside your grandparents' window long ago."
notes from one of my word vomits: https://t.co/OJzWSt9YCF https://t.co/Rym0qieeNM
ON IMITATION: "I tried to write stories heavily influenced by various of these writers, and succeeded in making quadruple-layered mudpies, all language and style, that would not float, and sank without a trace. I was too young to identify my problem, I was so busy imitating."
"It was only when I began to discover the treats and tricks that came with word association that I began to find some true way through the minefields of imitation. [... if you are going to step on a live mine, make it your own. Be blown up [..] by your OWN delights and despairs."