I picked up this book today, and I haven't gotten through all of it yet, but I have to say that Ray Bradbury's commentaries on various aspects of writing are a joy to read.

I've been struggling with it recently, since I've been torn on what I write. Sometimes I write fanfiction, largely because it doesn't matter so much in the grand scheme of things as a writer. But then my fiance doesn't understand why I place any importance on something like that. He understands commercial fiction, and his mother writes stories for magazines that publish happy, fluffy romantic short stories. I keep thinking about it, but I haven't yet. Somehow writing a trope of what somebody else wants feels like selling my soul.

And then there are the stories that half the time I never write because I suspect nobody would ever read them. They're too off the wall, or they feel like they only make sense to me. Bradbury, in that case is (I was going to say a ray of hope, and then realized the pun) an inspiration, because so many of his stories fall into that category I love to read and to write and I wonder about writing. They don't fall into any genre. And that was even a problem for him, as I've discovered in this book, because science fiction magazines didn't want a people story. And I'm sure that all the magazines that publish people stories wouldn't touch science fiction with a ten foot pole. Despite that, he's a successful writer. I sometimes forget that. Or at least I forget that he wasn't just successful automatically, and that the reason he could get through this roadblock I'm talking about was mostly just that he kept with it.

So I guess that was a long-winded way of saying thank you, as a budding writer, to Ray Bradbury. This book of essays on creativity might have given me the confidence to write something I just feel like writing, and take a wild chance at getting it published.

Best of luck to publishing and writing!
I know how you feel and precisely where you're at, too. I can write a ten thousand word sonnat or something but it doesn't ammount to a hill of beans if I'm not satisfied with it, eh?
Keep going at it!
There are a lot of readers out there! Chances are theres a whole potful of a folks who're waiting on the sort've stuff you write. Just keep going at it!

I agree. That is ONE inspiring book!

Hi everyone,

I am brand new here. I'm reading "Zen in the Art of Writing" now and thought I'd share an entry I wrote that was inspired by something I found in the book:

http://astrophysicistbarbie.bl...souls-grew-warm.html

quote:

Originally posted by Terri in Temecula:
Hi everyone,

I am brand new here. I'm reading "Zen in the Art of Writing" now and thought I'd share an entry I wrote that was inspired by something I found in the book:

http://astrophysicistbarbie.bl...souls-grew-warm.html

Terri,

Would you please pick me up some saddle soap from Big Horse and bring it to Mr. B's next play.

Sure, no problem John!

Love that quote by Aldous Huxley.