This is your first draft, so you might as well have fun.Įditing can come later. When a character turns up, bursting to say something, let They’ll start to lead you and form connections.Īt some point, a character may turn up and say “that’s me!” Writing tip: let your

Try freewriting around your powerful nouns. A lake so laden that it contains a story. It’s THE LAKE – the one and only, iconic, significant lake in your life. After all, your list isn’t just any old lake, night or crickets. It’s a gateway to the inner life “hidden under the trapdoor on the top of your skull”. THE TELEPHONE… Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of WritingĪ list like this, made up of your own loves, hates, fears, memories, will powerfully evoke your own world. If they’re anything like Bradbury’s, they’ll become a well if ideas which you can draw on all your life. Just take a piece of paper and write them down.

Writing tip: Theĭo you ever sit down and find you’ve run out of ideas? Try Bradbury’s technique: harvest nouns from your subconscious. Practice, improve, learn your craft, and release yourīut first, here are some writing tips from Zen in the Art of Writing. He calls it by another name, work, but the principle is the same. In the key essay in the book, Zen in the Art of Writing, Bradbury talks about deliberate practice. Bradbury recommends deliberate practice writing! It’s a bit like the I Ching for me! Something different will leap out, depending on your situation.Īnd what I discovered astonished me. I also find something new in it every time. I reread Zen in the Art of Writingevery few years. One to keep on your shelf, scribble on and go back to time after time. It’s a generous-spirited, wise and inspiring book that will leave you torn between reading more Bradbury, or haring to your own writing desk. It’s written in Bradbury’s infectious style, and will sweep you up in its passion. It gives insights into his beginnings as a writer and first childhood and teenage experiments. It has snippets of autobiography alongside wonderful nuggets of writing wisdom. Zen in the Art of Writing is a series of essays on writing from different times in Bradbury’s life, each one with a craft topic or inspiration. Mini Book Review: pure joy of writing, writer’s bolt of creative adrenaline What’s it about?

If you ever feel jaded or run out of writing steam, Bradbury’s book will get you right back in touch with the original zest and gusto that captured your interest in the first place. More than any other writer, for me he captures the excitement of reading and writing at a young age, and a sense of calling. Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing is a bolt of pure creative adrenaline.

Zen and the art of writing ray bradbury