Okay, I read Zen in the Art as I stated elsewhere (great book), and it did help me write a bit, but... that and other Bradbury writings seem to be Infecting my own. I mean now I feel I'm trying to Imitate his style, no not forcing, it just seems I'm more prone to it. And the funny thing is he said in his book that he spent a lot of his time trying to imitate Poe, Burroughs, and everyone else he admired. He told us not too! And yet now my subconscious seems to be making fluffy padded stories with no heart, no gut, Mudpies as he called them. I thought what to do? Couldn't find an answer, so I thought well maybe it's some desire to read more of him. Maybe I should buy a whole collection, and after I read it I'll get over it. Well I did, I'm reading, even enjoying it, but my writing is being infected. And I say infected because I can't make his style work for me. I never Imitated any authors before, Not even my favorite (still even with Bradbury) Kage Baker. The Reason is that I knew I couldn't do her writing. But Bradbury seems to make it look easy, and more importantly make it work. So please, please what should I do? Give up reading him, I don't think that'd stop it. Monitor my writing constantly every word I jot, think? That would take away what he labels "Zest, Gusto", and I don't want to eradicate that. I guess the only option is to read other authors to try to work this in. But who? Bova who I'm reading is too hard to write, or be inspired from even though he does use a more straight to the point writing. And the novel I'm reading now, Galactic Sibyl Sue Blue, (old - ancient thing) uses slightly harder, and more descriptive words, but has that straight to the point style (although not the "hard" Science fiction back bone), but even if that's what I want, to an extent I can't get it. Can't even try. That's also another reason why I want to meet Bradbury, No, No not to yell at him , just to see if meeting him could someway set this thing to rest.

My thread is slipping! Sinking! Please, If I raise it to the top will someone tell me how to get over this, or a way to round my writing a bit to blend all this together. Please I don't want to have that Ten year bit where I copy someone.

Alexander, no, I can't help you, just weigh in as a fellow sufferer. I can't really advise you on the difficult situation we all face of not being Ray--a dilemma on which we don't vent here half enough! For one, we haven't written 1,000 words a day, every day, since the age of 12. For another, if we did, there's no guarantee a fraction of it would be as good. So for starters we won't have the "body of work" he has produced.

Add to this that (darn it), I've known since 1982 not only that I didn't like any other writers as well as Ray, but that I WAS NEVER GOING TO. And that will apply to stuff written by MYSELF! There is a 96% chance I won't like my OWN work as well as his and I just have to live with it! (I don't know that this is an actual cause of not writing--I won't say "writer's block," which Ray argues doesn't even exist--but it can't help, can it?) All I can say is, it is nice to read the works of other writers as a break from Bradbury, even if some little part of something reminds readers in some way of him, so I'll just have to be one of "those" writers--which still puts me in some pretty grand distinguished company!

Someone (I'm pretty sure not Bradbury) said you have to read all the Faulkner there is and then read all the Hemingway there is to get the Faulkner out of your system. I know Bradbury has read lots of them, Steinbeck, and a ton of others. I confess to reading a small amount of Faulkner and almost no Hemingway. Just don't seem to tolerate them well for whatever reason. Now, Thomas Wolfe, I would like to read more of.

Bradbury also said a period of trying to imitate an admired author was normal and natural but not to try to do it for an extended time. I'm pretty sure I've got that right. He has also said such STRANGE and CONTRADICTORY things! He once said something along the lines of the whole idea of "style" being total b.s., that a writer should simply "tell the truth"--and yet he has the most distinctive and fascinating style of just about any writer who has ever set down words in English! What gives with THAT!?!

As far as should you monitor every word you write, Bradbury has said that to think is the WORST POSSIBLE thing anyone in any creative endeavor, particularly writers, can do. I admit to doing this to some extent, though--writing something and thinking, yes he would do this that way, so that is influenced by him, no he wouldn't do this other thing the way I did, so that's different, and I suppose there are some things I'd just deliberately do differently from him consciously or otherwise.

Okay, two major disagreements (oh, of *course* I mean topics which have arisen in polite conversation--sure I do--) we've had are whether a man can write from a woman's point of view and vice versa. He said his friend, Leigh Brackett, could write a long novel from the pov of the opposite gender--he couldn't. I've developed distinct theories as to why this is and the subject hasn't bothered me since.

The other thing is "a writer shouldn't go to college." Sorry, Mr. Bradbury, but I'm not budging on this. OF COURSE you can ditch going to college if you live in a huge creative city like L. A., have a group of friends like Leigh Brackett to read your stories and Robert A. Heinlein and Forrest J. Ackerman to bounce ideas around with, and people like Jack Benny and George Burns reading your material. But most of us, particularly in a town like mine (if you want to know where that is, check out the bottom of the post; HAL knows almost as much as I do and will insist on telling) just don't have such advantages! It may not be as true now, with the internet, but way back in the Dark Ages when I went to school, (Class of 1984!) creative beings NEEDED the atmosphere of college to show that anyone in the world even CARED about the same things!

Ray's optimism and confidence are great inspirations, you know, but they can sure have a downside to someone with a different personality who does not happen to share those traits to any great extent. Lots of writers have been depressed, though, so I'm not going to mope about THAT.

I think the single hugest thing which has caused me the greatest concern over the years is Ray's remark (in some interview--probably not "Zen in the Art of Writing," and, no, I'm not going to try to locate the exact quote) that "You have to write right away or your idea turns to sludge. The minute I heard Katherine Anne Porter spent ten years on 'Ship of Fools' I knew it was destined to sink."

Well, I'll clue ya, I've had plenty of ideas that weren't written five minutes after they came to me! It used to be if I didn't finish a novel in two years, I'd say, too bad, guess I wasn't meant to write that. Well, guess what. The darn things have COME BACK, and in FAR greater detail than when they first arrived on scene. (Also guess what. Ray has worked on a number of books over the span of many years, including rewriting earlier works in different forms.)

So this is my problem right now. Not even "style" so much (I'll try to find something that works--if part of it is like Ray, fine, if part of it is not, also fine--) but the question of, if an idea came back after 25 years, during which you were never really sure it was gone in the first place, but now it's definitely back and you are SURE it's back, even if you're not encouraging it it WON'T LEAVE, would you write the darn thing JUST to get it out of your system--even if, in modern parlance, it totally "su¢ked"?

The second part of the question is, if it did totally su¢k, would you even be obligated to feel bad about it, or should you just feel good that you wrote it at all?

I advise to set your ambitions low. Don't aspire to best Ray or equal Shakespeare. Personally, if I can beat the pants off John Jakes, I won't have lived in vain. (I even have to hand John Jakes at least one thing. Even if his writing isn't the greatest...how the heck can anyone even TYPE that much?) You think about that now.

Great discussion, A & D! Almost like the early years of this board. I hope Mr. Dark has time to weigh in on this one, too.

For me, since I write and read constantly, I still try to not mix the two. Oil and water. That is, I read for a week, a month, etc., when there's time, but when I'm writing I try not to open a book unless it's for research purposes.

Sure, all the influences of your life get mixed up in your writing, but, for me, the thing is to submerge in the subconscious, the windows of imagination, and I manage to forget everything else for a while.

As far as Bradbury's work goes, what a springboard for inspiration. I love his stories, his style, but there is only ONE Bradbury and if a morsel of his wonder sneaks, creeps, or crawls into my own writing, I count myself lucky.

The Lake, you said it: "a springboard for inspiration." How can anyone read Ray Bradbury and not be changed in some way? Infected, OK, affected, great, just don't let the antidote get near me. Having read Ray, the way I think, feel, perceive, and yes, write--are all better qualities than they might've been otherwise. No bad thing, there.

Dandelion, you posed the question of how Ray's writing could be so "distinctive and fascinating" when he's always said to just "tell the truth." If I may, truth comes from the heart, and Ray has the most singular, unique heart of any writer, ever. So when I hear Ray say, "tell the truth," what I'm hearing him say is write from your heart, write what you hold dearest. Also, I wish you'd shared your theory on why a female writer can write from a male perspective. . .

Glad you asked! This didn't make sense to me until I happened to attend a gathering of people from my religion (as opposed to my church--a difference I'll not go into here--) which included some people of the Bahá'í faith. Their religion actually believes "the soul has no gender," which is directly opposed to my own religion, which believes God creates each person as an individual and they go through eternity in a (hopefully improved) version of that form--in other words, a boy with a crippled arm wouldn't still have a crippled arm in the afterlife, and if he died young he wouldn't be "stuck" at age nine but could reach an ideal age--but he WOULD still be human, and male--no reincarnation, no switching bodies, genders, or species, one to a customer--the most a departed soul can do is influence someone still alive, so yes, a female can be influenced by a male entity and vice versa, but they don't change into that.

Suffice to say we rejected that part of their belief but they did say something else that was JOLLY INTERESTING. When any one group (or, I suppose, individual either) has been oppressed by another, the oppressed know an awful lot about the oppressors while the oppressors know relatively little about the oppressed. Wow, did THAT ring true! Look at back in slavery days, while many owners had simplistic ideas that slaves were childlike and if properly "managed" really liked being slaves, while the slaves themselves, those who weren't brainwashed by the masters anyway, could have written volumes about the masters. And who has traditionally been oppressed worldwide genderwise? Women by men! It was all the answer I needed and the issue never seriously worried me again.

Later I read an article by one of my favorite historical authors, Rosemary Sutcliff, not only a woman but who had the added disadvantage of being trapped in a wheelchair by a physical condition. She wrote about people who'd go charging off on horseback and otherwise led very active outdoor lives. She said she believed really knowing what it was like to be someone else was possible and one of the "perks" of being a writer.

That's a problem I'm having right now with my own writing. I know there are some characters with whom I identify very, very strongly, but I'm always second-guessing, am I correctly interpreting what I have observed? Although art is NOT formed by committee, and the author (or, okay, maybe the editor, but no one else) has the ultimate word, I decided to write the story to the best of my ability and then show the work to 99 people. Even Ray's work has been read and commented upon before publication. I decided to have the readers go over the story in "waves" of 33 each. I'd gather comments from the first 33, and if a lot of them agreed on something I'd keep it, if a lot questioned or disagreed on the same thing I'd examine and consider changing it. Then present the work to a second wave of 33 for their opinion and so on. That should avoid being any too influenced by one person. I haven't put the theory into practice yet but will when I have enough of a first draft to show people.

Dandelion, thanks for providing one of the most profound thoughts I've encountered in quite a while. Though I don't believe in absolutes, generally, the oppressed do study the oppressors--it makes me wish that native Americans had more of a written history, but it makes sense that all the oppressed were often discouraged from exhibiting what they knew, in writing and otherwise.

I think of Ray's "Toynbee Convector." What is it but hope that will move the human race foward? Hope that equals will live as equals, and that the term "oppressed," when referring to a group of people, won't exist? One of the catalysts of hope is knowledge. I learned something today, thank you, again.

And--I'm going to be presumptious here since you're already published, forgive me--the Great American Novel, or Great American Short Story, or whatever--is the one you hold up to your heart in your final days and say, "This is who I am." Let the truth as you know it flow into your characters, and they will be true to you.

Also, why give yourself 99 critics? There'll be enough of them when you're published again!

Ackerman's greatest discovery!!

Read about A and B:

http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051214/APE/512140561

Another interesting historical tidbit regarding FJA and Ray Bradbury: Forry Ackerman also loaned Ray the money to publish his now famous (and very scarce) mimeographed fanzine, FUTURIA FANTASIA, which lasted for four issues between 1939 and 1940, and featured writers such as Henry Kuttner, Robert Heinlein, Damon Knight and, of course, Ray himself. About a hundred copies of each issue were printed. The fanzine sold for 10 cents each at the time. A complete set now sells for thousands of dollars! Fortunately, a signed, limited edition hardcover of reprints of all four magazines is in the works from Vagabond Books, with Forry writing the introduction.

Lake, interesting article! Although "tyranadon" should be Pteranodon, (or Pterodactyl).
I didn't know Forry was still with us. I was a big fan of Famous Monsters Of Filmland when I was a weird young boy...

Short answer to ravenswake: I'd do just about anything to improve my work before it sees print, and other people will always, maddeningly ALWAYS, see things the author doesn't see! If something is really obvious the first time it's pointed out, or if more than one person brings up the same point, I will do something about it. Yes, it is hard to invite a lot of criticism without becoming discouraged.

I read several books on writing by Phyllis A. Whitney. In one was a chapter which stated this WILL happen to you and putting forth a number of scenarios, one of which is you write something of which one of the readers to whom you entrust your manuscripts is very supportive. You write something else, give it to the same reader, they hate it or are bitterly critical or both, and you get all ticked off. At the time I read this, it had already happened to me.