He explains in detail how particular personal experiences became the seeds for stories that he later wrote. He also talks about his sources of inspiration, many of which were culled from his childhood memories, ranging from the skeletons he drew as a child to the carnival that came to town, which he loved. I ask only for proper endings based on proper assessments of energy contained and given detonation.” - Ray Bradbury I’ve heard other authors express a need or a desire to write or a love of writing, but I’ve never heard it expressed in quite the same way as Bradbury, who felt a little crazy if he went too long without writing.

It doesn’t have to be a thousand words - an authentic one-hundred-word poem or a quick free-write can satisfy my need to write in a crunch. I get pretty cranky if I go too long without writing. Reading these words gave me the chills, because this is a phenomenon I have experienced myself. An hour’s writing is tonic.” - Ray Bradbury Four and I might as well be a hog, suffering the flux in a wallow. “I have learned, on my journeys, that if I let a day go by without writing, I grow uneasy. My personal daily goal as a writer is also a thousand words per day, although I didn’t start when I was twelve, and I often don’t hit my goal, especially when a project moves into editing, publishing, and marketing. He explains that he started writing a thousand words a day every day at the age of twelve. Bradbury shares his wisdom on this topic not by preaching to aspiring writers about what they should be doing but by explaining what he did. The theme that ties all essays in this book together is creativity and the act of keeping a healthy fountain of ideas flowing. The man was a fountain of wisdom, and his jovial demeanor made him a pleasure to read and watch. Later I delved into his life as an author, reading and watching every interview I could find. I was first introduced to Bradbury as a reading assignment in high school. He came up during a time when science fiction and fantasy were taken even less seriously by literary elites than they are today - yet his work not only went mainstream, it was academically acclaimed. Ray Bradbury is one of the masters of science fiction, most famous for his novels Fahrenheit 451and The Martian Chronicles. “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” - Ray Bradbury It’s an easy, relaxing read that imparts unique insight to boost your writing habits and keep ideas flowing freely and naturally. Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, a collection of essays on writing and creativity, is infused with unparalleled joy and passion for the craft of writing. This post contains affiliate links that earn commissions from qualifying purchases.

Zen and the art of writing ray bradbury