Zen in the Art of Writing

Ray Bradbury

• Publisher: RosettaBooks
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780795350511
• Subtopic: Creativity

The celebrated author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles offers inspiration and insight on finding one's muse and channeling it onto the page.
 
Acclaimed writer of novels and short stories as well as screen- and stage plays, Ray Bradbury has established himself as one of the most legendary voices in science fiction and fantasy. In Zen in the Art of Writing, he shares how his unbridled passion for creating worlds made him a master of the craft.
 
Part memoir, part philosophical guide, the essays in this book teach the joy of writing. Rather than focusing on the mechanics of putting words together, Bradbury's zen is found in the celebration of storytelling that drove him to write every day. Bringing together eleven essays and a series of poems written with his own unique style and fervor, Zen in the Art of Writing is a must read for all prospective writers and Bradbury fans.
 
"Bradbury lovers will find this a Bradbury feast." — Kirkus Reviews

…ON CREATIVITY

GO PANTHER-PAWED WHERE ALL THE MINED

TRUTHS SLEEP

Not smash and grab, but rather find and keep;

Go panther-pawed where all the mined truths sleep

To detonate the hidden seeds with stealth

So in your wake a weltering of wealth

Springs up unseen, ignored, and left behind

As you sneak on, pretending to be blind.

On your return along the jungle path you’ve made

Find all the littered stuffs where you have strayed;

The small truths and the large have surfaced there

Where you stealth-blundered wildly unaware

Or seeming so. And so these mines were mined

In easy game of pace and pounce and find;

But mostly fluid pace, not too much pounce.

Attention must be paid, but by the ounce.

Mock caring, seem aloof, ignore each mile

And metaphors like cats behind your smile

Each one wound up to purr, each one a pride,

Each one a fine gold beast you’ve hid inside,

Now summoned forth in harvests from the brake

Turned anteloping elephants that shake

And drum and crack the mind to awe,

To behold beauty yet perceive its flaw.

Then, flaw discovered, like fair beauty’s mole,

Haste back to reckon all entire, the Whole.

This done, pretend these wits you do not keep,

Go panther-pawed where all the mined truths sleep.

WHAT I DO IS ME—FOR THAT I CAME
for Gerard Manley Hopkins

What I do is me—for that I came.

What I do is me!

For that I came into the world!

So said Gerard;

So said that gentle Manley Hopkins.

In his poetry and prose he saw the Fates that chose

Him in genetics, then set him free to find his way

Among the sly electric printings in his blood.

God thumbprints thee! he said.

Within your hour of birth

He touches hand to brow, He whorls and softly stamps

The ridges and the symbols of His soul above your eyes!

But in that selfsame hour, full born and shouting

Shocked pronouncements of one’s birth,

In mirrored gaze of midwife, mother, doctor

See that Thumbprint fade and fall away in flesh

So, lost, erased, you seek a lifetime’s days for it

And dig deep to find the sweet instructions there

Put by when God first circuited and printed thee to life:

“Go hence! do this! do that! do yet another thing!

This self is yours! Be it!”

And what is that?! you cry at hearthing breast,

Is there no rest? No, only journeying to be yourself.

And even as the Birthmark vanishes, in seashell ear

Now fading to a sigh, His last words send you in the world:

“Not mother, father, grandfather are you.

Be not another. Be the self I signed you in your blood.

I swarm your flesh with you. Seek that.

And, finding, be what no one else can be.

I leave you gifts of Fate most secret; find no other’s Fate,

For if you do, no grave is deep enough for your despair

No country far enough to hide your loss.

I circumnavigate each cell in you

Your merest molecule is right and true.

Look there for destinies indelible and fine

And rare.

Ten thousand futures share your blood each instant;

Each drop of blood a cloned electric twin of you.

In merest wound on hand read replicas of what I planned and knew

Before your birth, then hid it in your heart.

No part of you that does not snug and hold and hide

The self that you will be if faith abide.

What you do is thee. For that I gave you birth.

Be that. So be the only you that’s truly you on Earth.”

Dear Hopkins. Gentle Manley. Rare Gerard. Fine name.

What we do is us. Because of you. For that we came.

THE OTHER ME

I do not write—

The other me

Demands emergence constantly.

But if I turn to face him much too swiftly Then

He sidles back to where and when

He was before

I unknowingly cracked the door

And let him out.

Sometimes a fire-shout beckons him,

He reckons that I need him,

So I do. His task

To tell me who I am behind this mask.

He Phantom is, and I facade

That hides the opera he writes with God,

While I, all blind,

Wait raptureless until his mind

Steals down my arm to wrist, to hand, t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• A Note About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• The Joy of Writing
• Run Fast, Stand Still, or, the Thing at the Top of the Stairs, or, New Ghosts from Old Minds
• How to Keep and Feed a Muse
• Drunk, and in Charge of a Bicycle
• Investing Dimes: Fahrenheit 451
• Just This Side of Byzantium: Dandelion Wine
• The Long Road to Mars
• On the Shoulders of Giants
• The Secret Mind
• Shooting Haiku in a Barrel
• Zen in the Art of Writing
• …On Creativity
• Acknowledgments