That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.”
RAY BRADBURY
Photo: Julia D, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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THE HALLOWEEN TREE (Excerpt)
by Ray Bradbury
It was a small town by a small river and a small lake in a small northern part of a Midwest state. There wasn’t so much wilderness around you couldn’t see the town. But on the other hand there wasn’t so much town you couldn’t see and feel and touch and smell the wilderness. The town was full of trees. And dry grass and dead flowers now that autumn was here. And full of fences to walk on and sidewalks to skate on and a large ravine to tumble in and yell across. And the town was full of…
Boys.
And it was the afternoon of Halloween.
And all the houses shut against a cool wind.
And the town was full of cold sunlight.
But suddenly, the day was gone.
Night came out from under each tree and spread.
BOOK DESCRIPTION: Eight boys set out on a Halloween night and are led into the depths of the past by a tall, mysterious character named Moundshroud. They ride on a black wind to autumn scenes in distant lands and times, where they witness other ways of celebrating this holiday about the dark time of year.
This 160-page illustrated book is available for $5.39 at Amazon.com.
“That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”
RAY BRADBURY, The October Country
Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life featues humor, writing advice, plus the incomparable Monsieur Snoopy in his atelier (i.e., doghouse roof) writing about dark and stormy nights.
Book summary from Library Journal: Using the many Snoopy “at the typewriter” strips as jumping-off points, 30 famous writers as disparate as Ray Bradbury, Elmore Leonard, Budd Shulberg, Dominick Dunne, Danielle Steele, and Sue Grafton contribute pep talks, amusing anecdotes, or useful advice to would-be writers based on their own experiences. Witty and charming, the essays offer much creative and practical wisdom. But the highlight of the book is the touching foreword by Charles Schulz’s son, Monte, who offers some striking insights into his father’s life, giving the reader a glimpse of the legendary cartoonist as a reader as well as a writer.
Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life is out of print, but copies are available at libraries — and used paperback editions are available at a reasonable prices (starting at around $5.00) on Amazon.com.
RAY BRADBURY TALKS REJECTION…
(from Snoopy’s Guide to the Writing Life)
…starting when I was fifteen I began to send short stories to magazines like Esquire, and they, very promptly, sent them back two days before they got them! I have several walls in several rooms of my house covered with the snowstorm of rejections, but they didn’t realize what a strong person I was; I persevered and wrote a thousand more dreadful short stories, which were rejected in turn.
Then, during the late forties, I actually began to sell short stories and accomplished some sort of deliverance from snowstorms [of rejection slips] in my fourth decade. But even today, my latest books of short stories contain at least seven stories that were rejected by every magazine in the United States and also in Sweden! …The blizzard doesn’t last forever; it just seems so.
Photo: Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) at home in Los Angeles
“…what does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.” RAY BRADBURY
Photo: “Busaba” by Ashley Vincent, Grand Prize Winner and Nature Winner in 2012 National Geographic Photo Contest.
“Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.”
“I never consciously place symbolism in my writing…The best symbolism is always unsuspected and natural. During a lifetime, one saves up information which collects itself around centers in the mind; these automatically become symbols on a subliminal level and need only be summoned in the heat of writing.”
“I believe that eventually quantity will make for quality. How so? Quantity gives experience. From experience alone can quality come. All arts, big and small, are the elimination of waste motion in favor of the concise declaration. The artist learns what to leave out…”
“Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be dynamic.”
“The only good writing is intuitive writing. It would be a big bore if you knew where it was going. It has to be exciting, instantaneous and it has to be a surprise. Then it all comes blurting out and it’s beautiful. I’ve had a sign by my typewriter for 25 years now which reads, ‘DON’T THINK!’”
“I absolutely demand of you and everyone I know that they be widely read in every damn field there is; in every religion and every art form and don’t tell me you haven’t got time! There’s plenty of time. You need all of these cross-references. You never know when your head is going to use this fuel, this food for its purposes.”
“I always say to students, give me four pages a day, every day. That’s three or four hundred thousand words a year. Most of that will be bilge, but the rest …? It will save your life!”
Photo: Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) in his 20s.
When the New Yorker published its first-ever science fiction issue — a double issue dated June 4 & 11, 2012 — no one predicted that the magazine would include Ray Bradbury‘s last published writing. (Bradbury passed away on June 5, 2012 a few month short of his 92nd birthday.)
Entitled “Take Me Home,” Bradbury’s contribution to the New Yorker‘s science fiction issue discusses the author’s favorite books as a child and includes a poignant reminiscence about a 4th of July spent with his grandfather. Read “Take Me Home” at newyorker.com.
Cover illustration: Daniel Clowes, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
When I visited Glendale, California, a few weeks ago for a meeting, I parked in front of the Mystery & Imagination Bookshop at 238 N. Brand Blvd. I was intrigued by the poster in the window for a book called Searching for Ray Bradbury by Steven Paul Leiva — and finally took the time today to check out the bookstore and Leiva’s Book.
The first thing I ran across was an article in the Huffington Post (5/16/2013), where Steven Paul Leiva writes about the Mystery & Imagination Bookshop — and explains that Ray Bradbury called it, “one of the best bookstores ever.” (Read the article at huffingtonpost.com)
The Mystery & Imagination Bookshop also operates an online bookstore that offers rare and used books in the detective, science fiction, and fantasy genres. For more information, visit mysteryandimagination.com.
Searching for Ray Bradbury includes eight essays written by Steven Paul Leiva about his friend and inspiration, Ray Bradbury. In the book, Leiva also writes about his work to honor Bradbury on his 90th birthday with RAY BRADBURY WEEK in Los Angeles, a weeklong series of events in 2010 that were the great author’s last public appearances. Searching for Ray Bradbury also details Leiva’s successful effort to name the major Los Angeles downtown intersection of Fifth & Flower, adjacent to the Los Angeles Central Library, RAY BRADBURY SQUARE. Find Searching for Ray Bradbury at Amazon.com . Visit Steven Paul Leiva at his blog for more information about the author and his work.
Book Cover illustration: Lou Romano, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
A few years before his death in 2012 at age 91, Ray Bradbury shared his thoughts about his life and his writing with interviewer Sam Weller in The Paris Review (Summer 2012). Here are excerpts from the interview that focus on Bradbury’s sources of inspiration and techniques for getting inspired.
WRITERS WHO INSPIRED:
I used to study Eudora Welty. She has the remarkable ability to give you atmosphere, character, and motion in a single line. In one line! You must study these things to be a good writer. Welty would have a woman simply come into a room and look around. In one sweep she gave you the feel of the room, the sense of the woman’s character, and the action itself. All in twenty words. And you say, How’d she do that? What adjective? What verb? What noun? How did she select them and put them together?
I was an intense student. Sometimes I’d get an old copy of [Thomas] Wolfe and cut out paragraphs and paste them in my story, because I couldn’t do it, you see. I was so frustrated! And then I’d retype whole sections of other people’s novels just to see how it felt coming out. Learn their rhythm.
JUMPSTARTING THE IMAGINATION:
…in the old days I knew I had to dredge my subconscious…I did it by making lists of nounsand then asking, What does each noun mean? …The night. The crickets. The train whistle. The basement. The attic. The tennis shoes. The fireworks…Then, when you get the list down, you begin to word-associate around it. You ask, Why did I put this word down? What does it mean to me? Why did I put this noun down and not some other word? Do this and you’re on your way to being a good writer…Make a list of ten things you hate and tear them down in a short story or poem. Make a list of ten things you love and celebrate them.
...I started to write short, descriptive paragraphs, two hundred words each, and in them I began to examine my nouns. Then I’d bring some characters on to talk about that noun and that place, and all of a sudden I had a story going. I used to do the same thing with photographs that I’d rip out of glossy magazines. I’d take the photographs and I’d write little prose poems about them.
…When I look at the paintings of Edward Hopper, it does this. He did those wonderful townscapes of empty cafes, empty theaters at midnight with maybe one person there. The sense of isolation and loneliness is fantastic. I’d look at those landscapes and I’d fill them with my imagination…
Silver Birch Press 