Every writer needs to read this book.

Libbie

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Yesterday while stocking the sci-fi paperbacks at the book store where I have some very enjoyable (if hectic) seasonal work, I found Ray Bradbury's "Zen in the Art of Writing." I pulled it for my private stash (one of the employee benefits - yahoo!) I just started reading it today. I've only read the preface, but it's already incredible, and full of great advice for us.

But what would happen [if you did not write every day] is that the world would catch up with and try to sicken you. If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy, or both.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

For writing allows just the proper recipes of truth, life, reality as you are able to eat, drink, and digest without hyperventilating and flopping like a dead fish in your bed.

I have learned, on my journeys, that if I let a day go by without writing, I grow uneasy. Two days and I am in tremor. Three and I suspect lunacy. Four and I might as well be a jog, suffering the flux in a wallow. An hour's writing is tonic. I'm on my feet, running in circles, yelling for a clean pair of spats.

I've always liked dudes named Ray.

Read this book!
 

Lyra Jean

Two years old now.
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Yesterday while stocking the sci-fi paperbacks at the book store where I have some very enjoyable (if hectic) seasonal work, I found Ray Bradbury's "Zen in the Art of Writing." I pulled it for my private stash (one of the employee benefits - yahoo!) I just started reading it today. I've only read the preface, but it's already incredible, and full of great advice for us.



I've always liked dudes named Ray.

Read this book!

I own that book and it really didn't do much for me at the time. Perhaps it's time to reread it.
 

mario_c

Your thoughts are not real...
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I love that book. He shows his poetic nature and skill with words as much in this simple how-to book as he does in his great short stories and novels. So inspiring!
 

virtue_summer

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I adore Zen in the Art of Writing. Bradbury's fantastic and the way he writes about writing is incredibly inspiring.
 

Chrisla

practical experience, FTW
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Have it, haven't read it yet. I keep hearing that he's really great, but after buying October Country, found I could only get through a few stories. His genre is just not my cup of tea, which is strange, since I do like some of Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Anyway, I'll see if I can find it and take another look.
 

alleycat

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If you enjoyed that book, you might also like Green Shadows, White Whale. It's about Bradbury's adventures in Ireland while working on the movie Moby Dick. People are not as familiar with it as some of Bradbury's other books, but it's a classic in its own way.
 

CACTUSWENDY

An old, sappy, and happy one.
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Have it....did not like it. Do not care for his stuff either. Glad there are different styles for different folks.