Off the Bookshelf: ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING, by Ray Bradbury

A book on BEING a writer, more than a book on the writing craft.

Part autobiography.

It went way too fast, and yet there's a lot of meat for digesting, slowly, so maybe the smaller portions, highly condensed, are a wise choice. This is a collection of essays on writing Bradbury wrote over several decades.

I enjoyed remembering the books I had read, or short stories, and the movies I had seen as he talked about the various journeys to get them written. I had a little bit of shock to realize that a story I read in an English class magazine was written by Bradbury. Mind-blowing -- "name" SF writers having their stories appear in required classes in school. Of course, I remember when "Rocky" was coming out, and we had some scenes from the script in our English class magazine, so ....

Even if you don't write SF or fantasy, this book is highly useful for just getting into the mind of a writer and seeing that we don't all do it the same way, we don't all have the same journey, we don't all run at the same pace or learn things the same way. What works for YOU is the right journey to take and the right tools to pick up and the right approach to use.

Thanks to the master for making clearer what I've been learning for some time now, and will probably have to keep learning, as I go along.

As a note: I have a big stack of writing craft/writing resource books that have piled up, and my goal is to read at least 1 each month. Here's hoping -- and hold me accountable!