Top 10 Tips about Writing from Zen in the Art of Writing By Ray Bradbury
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While visiting New York City last summer, I had hopes that I could catch The Moth where storytellers get up to tell a range of tales at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe on Crosby Street.
Since I wasn’t in the city on the day the show is held, I did the second best thing by visiting the Housing Works Bookstore.
Just the thought of being surrounded by whispers of words spoken by several writers from previous Moth performances left me feeling inspired and embraced by their stories.
Wanting a keepsake from the stop, Ray Bradbury’s book, Zen in the Art of Writing, drew up alongside me and asked me to choose it.
Several parts of this book had me in awe of his mind while his advice on writing filled my lips with smiles while my thoughts were tickled, yet they were also tucked in with strict orders for how to write.
It’s true when they say Bradbury speaks to the hearts of writers.
Here are some of his main tips that I took to heart…
#1: Write with zest, gusto, love and fun!
“…if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. It means you are so busy keeping one eye on the commercial market, or one ear peeled for the avant-garde coterie, that you are not being yourself. You don’t even know yourself. For the first thing a writer should be is—excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it’d be better for his health.”
#2: Write everyday
Bradbury wrote 1,000 words each day and a short story every week for the first 10 years of his writing career. “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 hog, suffering the flux in a wallow. An hour’s writing is tonic. I’m on my feet, running in circles, and yelling for a clean pair of spats.”
#3: Be original
“There is only one type of story in the world. Your story.”
#4: Carry a notebook for awe, wonder &
words.
Then you must “go immediately to the typewriter and preserve the inspiration for all time by putting it on paper.”
#5: Read poetry
“What poetry? Any poetry that makes your hair stand up along your arms.”
#6: Feed your muse
“By living well, by observing as you live, by reading well and observing as you read, you have fed Your Most Original Self. By training yourself in writing, by repetitious exercise, imitation, good example, you have made a clean, well-lighted place to keep your Muse.
#7: Read authors who write the way I want to
write.
“Read those authors who write the way you hope to write, those who think the way you would like to think. But also read those who do not think as you think or write as you want to write, and so be stimulated in directions you might not take for many years.”
#8: Assault your readers with sensory details.
“If your reader feels the sun on his flesh, the wind fluttering his shirt sleeves, half your fight is won. The most improbable tales can be made believable, if your reader, through his senses, feels certain that he stands at the middle of events.”
#9: Write quickly
“What can we learn from lizards, lift from birds? In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth dead falling or tiger-trapping.”
#10: Enjoy writing
Enjoy writing. “If you’re not happy with the way your writing has gone, you might give my method a try. If you do, I think you might easily find a new definition for Work. And the word is LOVE.”
Please share your favorite books about writing or books that inspire you in the comments. And if you’ve used Zen in the Art of Writing, what did you think of it?
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