Рэй Брэдбери (Ray Bradbury)Zen in the Art of Writing
Ray Douglas Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Zen in the Art of Writing
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ray Bradbury has published some twenty-seven books-novels, stories, plays, essays, and poems-since his first story appeared when he was twenty years old. He began writing for the movies in 1952-with the script for his own Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. The next year he wrote the screenplays for It Came from Outer Space and Moby Dick. And in 1961 he wrote Orson Welles's narration for King of Kings. Films have been made of his "The Picasso Summer," The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the short animated film Icarus Montgolfier Wright, based on his story of the history of flight, was nominated for an Academy Award. Since 1985 he has adapted his stories for "The Ray Bradbury Theater" on USA Cable television.
TO MY FINEST TEACHER,
JENNET JOHNSON,
WITH LOVE
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 WI NE
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
HOW TO CLIMB THE TREE OF LIFE, THROW ROCKS AT YOURSELF, AND GET DOWN AGAIN WITHOUT BREAKING YOUR BONES OR YOUR SPIRIT A PREFACE WITH A TITLE NOT M UCH LONGER THAN THE BOOK
Sometimes I am stunned at my capacity as a nine-year-old, to understand my entrapment and escape it.
How is it that the boy I was in October, 1929, could, because of the criticism of his fourth grade schoolmates, tear up his Buck Rogers comic strips and a month later judge all of his friends idiots and rush back to collecting?
Where did that judgment and strength come from? What sort of process did I experience to enable me to say: I am as good as dead. Who is killing me? What do I suffer from? What's the cure?
I was able, obviously, to answer all of the above. I named the sickness: my tearing up the strips. I found the cure: go back to collecting, no matter what.