#20for2020 Book of Essays

Finally got around to this and absolutely adored it.
Bradbury clearly illustrates in these essays that we can only write if we creep past the gate keepers and their snobby critiques. Very encouraging! Nothing Zen about modern attempts to can writing instruction. If it’s in a can it’s modern not classic.

Loved his poetry to. All this from a man without the validation of a degree.


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.

Mostly skimmed through this as the writing was very jarring and boring. Mostly filled with strange stories about himself and his background. With some wise sentences on the craft of writing scattered a little throughout. The quotes I highlighted were very helpful and sometimes beautifully poetic, but unfortunately, the e-book as a whole was very boring. Personally, I would just google Bradbury's tips on writing, you will probably get more info online than inside this book. But if you are genuinely interested in his life story then it might be for you. But I just personally didn't get anything out of this.

If you're looking for the book that finally teaches you everything you ever wanted to know about writing - the book that will finally give you the key to the famous author's success - this one isn't for you. On one hand, no such book exists. On the other, Ray Bradbury's "Zen and the Art of Writing" is less about the craft and mechanics of writing than one man's passion and zeal for good old-fashioned fun stories.

Bradbury has been criticized for being overly sentimental and rightfully so. At times this book reads like a wistful eulogy for his lost childhood, and that his writing career has always been in pursuit of that. But even if that's true, so what? Bradbury has left us with some classics, and while this book may not be all that insightful or instructional, it reflects a man's (or a boy's)passion for what he does - about looking at the ordinary and seeing the extrordinary, and if that doesn't inspire you to take up your own pen, typewriter, or laptop, nothing will.

In this collection of essays, Ray Bradbury provides advice for writers and comments on his prolific career. He encourages writers to look to unusual places for inspiration. Read poetry. Visit art galleries or museums. Keep lists and revisit them regularly, even years later. Follow your passion. Do not write for reasons of “making it big” or appealing to current fads or capturing a commercial market. Write daily. Write one story per week and keep at it. He wrote 1,000 words per day every day. Written in his lyrical style, Bradbury’s enthusiasm for writing leaps off the page. It is more inspirational than instructional. Definitely worthwhile for those who enjoy reading about writing.

لو فكرت أعمل bookshelf وسميته cute books أكيد إن الكتاب ده هيكون على قمته
كتاب شجعني على إني أبدأ بتسجيل أي شيء وكل شيء، حتى أكثرها تفاهة يعني
شكرًا للمترجمين، بثينة وأحمد وهيفاء وعلي والجميع

نمی‌ دانم از پرویز دوائی نازنین بگویم یا از ری برادبری بزرگ یا از جادوی نوشتن. سال هاست در جست و جوی جادویی برای نوشتن هستم. هیچ وقت از نوشته هایم راضی نیستم و هرگز خود را نویسنده نمی دانم. همواره از خودم ناراضی ام و تلاشم برای بهتر شدن را وقت تلف کردنی بیش می دانم. اما... اما نمی توانم نوشتن را رها کنم. در من میلی عجیب و زیاد به نوشتن است. به قصه گفتن به دیدن ساده ترین چیزها از سخت ترین زوایا.. به نامه نوشتن.. به نوشتن و نوشتن..
پرویز دوائی می‌ گوید در حین ترجمه این کتاب در قسمت هایی از آن شک داشته که جمله از آن اوست یا ری بردبری از این جهت که هر دو مانند هم فکر می کنند که آن نقطه مشترک هم یعنی: نوشتن چون هوا، چون میل به بقا، چون شادی و غم در ما جریان دارد و از آن گریزی نیست... فقط باید به آن سمت و سو داد؛ همان سه اصل مهم ذِن؛ کار کردن، رها کردن و فکر نکردن... این سه با هر ترتیبی باید جواب بدهند.

اگر رویای نویسندگی دارید این کتاب رو باید همیشه در کیف تون حمل کنید یا روی میز کارتون در دسترس باشه.. اگر هم می خواهید بدونید نویسنده های بزرگ چطوری فکر می کنند خوندنش خیلی می تونه براتون جذاب باشه... :)‌

باختصار
ان كان لشخص فضل علي في عالم الكتابة بعد "نفسي" سيكون هذا الشخص
راي برادبيري
وان كان لكتاب فضل علي في تغير اسلوبي وتنوعه الى ان امتد الى الرعب والخيال والفنتازيا سيكون هذا الكتاب
الزن في فن الكتابة
انا التي اكره واخاف افلام الرعب
لم اكن اتخيل ابدا بان اكتب فيه
اذن انت رائع يا برادبيري
لم اكن اعرفك .. سامحني
ولم اكن اصلا اعلم انك يكتب في الرعب والفنتازيا والخيال العلمي
لحين قرات هذا الكتاب ووصلتني ذبذباتك
كم هو رائع تأثير امثالك
شكرا لك

Will review later. A nice set of essays on writing.

Ray Bradbury, a titan author of American science fiction, shares remembrances and anecdotes from his lifetime. Within the essays, Bradbury shares both his passion for writing and the methods with which he accomplished it.

"And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right. ... Secondly, writing is survival." pg 12, ebook

From his childhood days in Waukegan, Illinois, to penning screen plays in Ireland, Bradbury mined his life experiences with his subconscious mind and unearthed, so to speak, the stories that he wrote.

"And when a man talks from his heart, in his moment of truth, he speaks poetry." pg 32, ebook

Bradbury also highlights the importance of writing at least a little bit every day. Through his habit of writing an essay a week, Bradbury cranked out hundreds during his lifetime. Though he admits not all of them were brilliant, each one brought something to his experience, whether that was honing his craft or creating avenues towards other brighter stories.

Recommended for aspiring authors or any reader who is a fan of Bradbury. This book shines a spotlight on both the man and his creations.

„Дзен в изкуството да пишеш“ ми хареса по много причини. Бредбъри не използва назидателен тон, нито оставя читателя с впечатлението, че това, за което говори, е невъзможно да бъде постигнато от друг простосмъртен.

Моят творчески pep talk в писмен вид, при това от любим писател! :) Препоръчвам!

Цялото ревю - тук: http://azcheta.com/dzen-v-izkustvoto-...

Не съм най-големият фен на Бредбъри, лично смятам, че Фаренхайт 451 е снобарска, семпла и зверски преценена, което като цяло не обяснява, защо притежавам тази книга. Но проклет да бъда ако не си израя недоволството!

Е, като за книга с заглавие "Дзен в изкуството да пишеш" съдържанието доста бегло засяга писането. По-точна титла би била "Как Рей Бредбъри получи идеите си за куп разкази + лоша мотивационна реч + лоша поезия". Повечето есета свързани с писането ми се сториха наивни. Разбирам, че е яко да си писател, но също така разбирам, че писането е техническо умение. Стивън Кинг поне описва някой съвети (и то доста солидни) в автобиографията си барабар с житейската и творческата си история. Единственият съвет, който открих тук, бе "обичай да пишеш и пиши", което, нали, малко спада в категорията no shit, Sherlock.

Есетата отнасящи се до произведенията му ми се сториха скучни, тъй като не съм чел Бредбъри, но това не означава, че не можеха да са по-добри. Като за есета бяха доста плитки и като за обяснения зад разкази можеха да са нещо повече от "Сетих се за разказ X, написах разказ X". А тази поезия на края беше просто ужаснa, не знам дали е от превода или от фактът, че не харесвам поезия, може би е микс от двете, но така и не дочетох стихотворенията (дребният шрифт също не помогна).

I believe one thing holds it all together. Everything I’ve ever done was done with excitement, because I wanted to do it, because I loved doing it. The greatest man in the world for me, one day, was Lon Chaney, was Orson Welles in ‘Citizen Kane’, was Laurence Olivier in ‘Richard III’. The men change, but one thing remains always the same: the fever, the ardor, the delight.

This is probably the one thing that I envy the most about Bradbury: his talent to express his enthusiasm with words, his unapologetic pride in being a dreamer, his faith that we can learn from the past and that we can use literature and poetry not as a means to escape from reality, but as a tool to make our dreams come true.
My rating for this collection of autobiographical essays that cover decades of lectures and interviews and book launchings has more to do with my fanboy credentials than with any perceived value to students of creative writing, but I am myself feeling unapologetic about singing Bradbury’s praise.

About the time I finished highschool, forced to confront the fact that I had no idea what I want to do with my life, I toyed with the idea of becoming a writer. I was a voracious consumer of books and cinema, absorbing all these fictional worlds, and thought that if they can do it, maybe so could I.
One of the very first essays in this Bradbury collection explains why my plans never got off the ground: Bradbury can later talk at length about his enchanted childhood memories or about his own passion for reading and watching movies or about ways to lure and capture the elusive muse of artistic inspiration, but the true secret of his success is discipline and hard work.
For more than fifty years, he got up every morning and wrote one thousand or two thousand words. Later in the day, he came back and rewrote everything several times, until he was satisfied with the phrasing and the structure. He did this all on his own, year after year, with little commercial or publishing success. But it was the thing that he loved most in the world, and he kept at it until he became better, until the distance between an idea and its expression on paper was erased. For all his long career, Bradbury ignored both critics and praise, struggling to remain true to his inner vision, to his balancing act between childhood innocence and bleak visions of the future, to his faith that we as humans are not victims of predestination but we have the power to shape our own destinies.

“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”

[a rendition of ‘I Did It My Way’ is appropriate here]

Biographical details and the way they are reflected in the opus of the author are all fascinating in themselves, but the real focus of the exercise is creativity, that most elusive of the arrows in a writer’s arsenal, and this is where the term ‘ZEN’ from the title of the collection comes into play.
You, me, and anybody on this planet could and should be a writer, should be able to express his or her personality in words, give back a little of the treasure chest of experience and emotions gathered over a lifetime.

“If it seems I've come the long way around, perhaps I have. But I wanted to show what we all have in us, that it has always been there, and so few of us bother to notice. When people ask me where I get my ideas, I laugh. How strange -- we're so busy looking out, to find ways and means, we forget to look in.”

What the orientals have to teach us is that contemplation is just as important as action. Action in writer’s terms means getting up each morning and putting down your ideas, your dreams and nightmares on paper. Contemplation is looking at the meaning of what you are doing, gazing at your own experience and trying to make sense of it in the larger social and emotional context.
‘Zen’ is that special ingredient that Westerners seem to ignore or gloss over and it means inner peace and beauty, patience and generosity, the place where ideas trump action and plot.

“Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.”

or, in another place,

“I thought you could beat, pummel, and thrash an idea into existence. Under such treatment, of course, any decent idea folds up its paws, turns on its back, fixes its eyes on eternity, and dies.”

Just be yourself, be honest and diligent and the muse will come to you when least expected, just like a stray cat that will run away if you try to force it, yet will come back in curious earnest if you turn your back to it and engage in something interesting.
Everything and anything could be a source of inspiration, from the works of other authors and poets, to the most mundane of household items. Your task is to entice the muse with everything that surrounds you, trash and treasure alike. Your task is to care deeply about the world you live in, to be curious and engaged in life, to understand your past and your future and your role in it by constantly questioning established thinking and ready-made answers.

“Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures.”

Authors are part of the world and not some detached, esoteric minds dwelling in ivory towers. Some of the harshest words in the essays are reserved for high-brow authors who cater to elitist literary magazines and despise low-brow popular entertainment for the masses. I don’t want to spend too much time refuting their existential angst, probably because I had enjoyed some of their output.
Much more fascinating in this collection for me is the way Ray Bradbury’s career, starting in the early fifties and going on into the nineties, is a mirror of the public’s initial disdain of speculative fiction as pure escapism and low-brow literature, not worthy of academic consideration, transformed through the talent of Golden Age authors into the most pure and honest expression of our modern age woes and aspirations.

Librarians were stunned to find that science-fiction books were not only being borrowed in the tens of thousands, but stolen and never returned!
“What’s in these books that makes them as irresistible as Cracker Jack?”

For Ray Bradbury the answer to this dilemma is in the issues these authors tackled in their high adventure yarns, going back to the fundamental myths and legends of our racial memory, such as Joseph Campbell or Mircea Eliade were teaching about in university courses.

The children sensed, if they could not speak, that the entire history of mankind is problem solving, or science-fiction swallowing ideas, digesting them, and excreting formulas for survival. You can’t have one without the other. No fantasy, no reality. No studies concerning loss, no gain. No imagination, no will. No impossible dreams: No possible solutions.

For Bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Vonnegut Jr and the others, speculative fiction was never about entertainment or escapism – it was about our common future and the way only by imagining it today we can bring it about tomorrow.

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And his advice for prospective writers: be true to yourself, work hard every day to bring your dream to life, don’t sweat it if the going gets rough and at all times, keep a good hold on your sense of wonder : it’s your most precious asset.

We never sit anything out.
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled.
The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

- - - -

“Go, children. Run and read. Read and run. Show and tell.”