Ray Bradbury: Stuff Your Head, Scrap Your Detractors

"And don't live in your 'goddamn computer'"

Born in Waukegan, Illinois, Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) never went to college, but spent much of his childhood in the library, where he was inspired by the Edgars: Edgar Allan Poe and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Best known for Fahrenheit 451 (1953), he is credited with bringing science fiction to the popular imagination. His writing is imaginative, poetic and critical of society and the dangers of technology.

In a 2001 keynote address at Point Loma Nazarene University’s Writer’s Symposium By the Sea, Ray Bradbury gave the following advice on what he primly calls “writing hygiene.”

• Don’t start out writing novels. He claimed no one can write 52 bad short stories in a row, so write one short story per day and you may surprise yourself!

• Examine “quality” short stories. He suggests Roald Dahl and Guy de Maupassant.

• "Stuff your head. At the end of a thousand nights, Jesus God, you'll be full of stuff!" Bradbury's prescription is one short story and one poem before bedtime (such as Pope, Shakespeare or Frost, not modern "crap"), plus one essay from a wide range of fields.

• Scrap your detractors, "Fire them" today even if they are critical of you in silence. Choose well your friends, allies and colleagues.

• Live in the library. Don't live in your "goddamn computer." Bradbury never went to college. He was self-educated--a "graduate from the library."

• "Fall in love with movies, preferably old ones."

• "List 10 things you love, and 10 things you hate." Write about the former, and scrap the later by writing about them as well. Then do so with your fears.

• "Just type any old thing that comes into your head." Use "word association" to work through blockages, "You don't know what's in you until you test it." (See Stream of Consciousness post.)

• "You may love 'em, but you can't be 'em." Although Ray Bradbury emulated writers like Jules Verne, there's no real point in aspiring to be a counterfeiter of other people's prose or poetry. You must be you.

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Each and every person is unique! So, to the extent possible, I like to make anything I write unique:

Give it a unique twist

Unique characters (usually this is better than mere archetypes)

Unique quirks (according to the spirit of the age, as in Breakfast at Tiffany's)

Unique life's lessons (unique, but universal)

Unique cadence/pacing

Unique structure

Overlay the story with unique surprises, reasons for excitement and inspiration

You can, however, selectively borrow aspects of your favorite works:

Borrow an interesting setting or situation (such as a scene from a David Hockney painting or any painting)

Borrow literary devices, such as foreshadowing or embedded narratives

Borrow the basic structure of a film or book you love

Borrow methods and tips, of course!

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Post Script

Here are some mind-blowing facts I came across.

Unbelievably, 82% of people believe they do not deserve a healthy and happy life and that it is not safe to live a healthy, happy life!

Most of the remaining 18% believe either they do not deserve it or it is not safe!

Bizarrely, many church-goers today vocally reject the teachings of Jesus - !? Approximately 75% of dedicated Christians believe it's not possible to be holy, even though the Bible repeatedly commands us to "be holy as I am holy" NINE TIMES throughout the Old and New Testaments. Yet another example of the rank and file not being able to follow, or even understand its leader’s genius.