Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius within You by Ray Bradbury
BUY IT NEW
- $7.99 Online price$7.19 Member price(Save 10%)Limited Time Offer! Everyone receives the Member Price on books.
See Details
Reserve it at BN.com & pick it up in 60 minutes at your local store.
Enter a zip code
(Mass Market Paperback - Reissue)
- Pub. Date: March 1992
- 158pp
- Sales Rank: 38,043
Buy it Used: 22 copies from $2.94 See All Available
Customers who bought this also bought
Product Details
- Pub. Date: March 1992
- Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
- Format: Mass Market Paperback, 158pp
- Sales Rank: 38,043
- ISBN-13: 9780553296341
- ISBN: 0553296345
- Edition Description: Reissue
Synopsis
"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a land mine. The land mine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces back together. Now, it's your turn. Jump!" Zest. Gusto. Curiosity. These are the qualities every writer must have, as well as a spirit of adventure. In this exuberant book, the incomparable Ray Bradbury shares the wisdom, experience, and excitement of a lifetime of writing. Here are practical tips on the art of writing from a master of the craft-everything from finding original ideas to developing your own voice and style-as well as the inside story of Bradbury's own remarkable career as a prolific author of novels, stories, poems, films, and plays. Zen In The Art Of Writing is more than just a how-to manual for the would-be writer: it is a celebration of the act of writing itself that will delight, impassion, and inspire the writer in you. In it, Bradbury encourages us to follow the unique path of our instincts and enthusiasms to the place where our inner genius dwells, and he shows that success as a writer depends on how well you know one subject: your own life.
Publishers Weekly
As the title suggests, science fiction master Bradbury occasionally sounds like a Zen sage (``You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you''), but for the most part these nine lightweight, zestful essays dispense the sort of shoptalk generally associated with writers' workshops. The title piece aims to help the aspiring writer navigate between the self-consciously literary and the calculatingly commercial. Other essays deal with discovering one's imaginative self; feeding one's muse; the germination of Bradbury's novel Dandelion Wine in his Illinois boyhood; a trip to Ireland; science fiction as a search for new modes of survival; and the author's stage adaptation of his classic novel Fahrenheit 451. Eight poems on creativity round out the volume; noteworthy are ``Doing Is Being'' and ``We Have Our Arts So We Won't Die of Truth.'' (Mar.)
More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
A veteran sci-fi author with side talents for poetry, plays and screenwriting, Ray Bradbury has had a long career of provoking thought and a compelling uneasiness in generations of readers. But rather than create worlds made for escape, Bradbury refracts our own foibles through otherworldly prisms.
More About the AuthorCustomer Reviews
Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius within Youby Anonymous
Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings
November 17, 2005: Zen in the Art of Writing is a collection of essays written over the long career of Ray Bradbury. Each essay is like a little gift to the reader. He teaches us about writing on what we love, and what we hate and to always stay drunk on writing, because it saves us from reality. Bradbury's single best piece of advice concerns, well, writing. He devotes a chapter on the mechanics of writing, the way he learned it. To become a successful writer according to Bradbury, one must write at least a thousand words a day until the process becomes automatic and the hand is no different from what it writes. It is simply fascinating to delve into the mind of one of the greatest science fiction writers on how the craft is done. This chapter alone is worth buying the book which seems to be quite cheap. I am using this book as a reference for my research essay on fiction at Oklahoma State. It contains anecdotes and wisdom which will make you want to go out and write about everything you see. I couldn't recommend anything better for a beginning writer.
Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius within Youby Anonymous
Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings
June 03, 2005: All aspiring writers will enjoy this gem! Ray Bradbury's genius is evident throughout and will motivate and inspire you. And even if you aren't hoping to be a writer, Mr. Bradbury's perspective on life will encourage you. One of my favorites from this book: 'Who are your friends? Do they believe in you? Or do they stunt your growth with ridicule and disbelief? If the latter, you haven't friends. Go find some.' Thanks, Mr. Bradbury, for a wonderful book.
Loading...