BW34: Sunday's Book Babble - Ray Bradbury

 

Today is the anniversary of one of my favorite writers Ray Bradbury who entertains with his writing and inspired my Feed the Muse challenge.   

Doing is Being

By

Ray Bradbury

Doing is being.
To have done’s not enough.
To stuff yourself with doing — that’s the game.
To name yourself each hour by what’s done,
To tabulate your time at sunset’s gun
And find yourself in acts
You could not know before the facts
You wooed from secret self, which much needs wooing,
So doing brings it out,
Kills doubt by simply jumping, rushing, running
Forth to be
The new-discovered me.
To not do is to die,
Or lie about and lie about the things
You just might do some day.
Away with that!
Tomorrow empty stays
If no man plays it into being
With his motioned way of seeing.
Let your body lead your mind —
Blood the guide dog to the blind;
So then practice and rehearse
To find heart-soul’s universe,
Knowing that by moving/seeing
Proves for all time: Doing’s being!

******************

Currently reading Hexing with a Chance of Tornados.   Think I need some heavier reads and will get back into reading the last Wheel of Time book after I'm done.  Need more meat with my fluff.   

We have a busy yet fun week coming up. Hubby and I celebrating 24 years of marriage on Monday and Wednesday is Hubby's 62nd birthday.  Party time! 

Let's Write...

The universe is trying to tell me something.  I signed up for the Writer's Digest Short Story class which began last week.  My muse has been hitting me on the head the past few days with TLC's Waterfalls.  I've had the chorus lyrics running through my head for the past couple nights:

Don't go chasing waterfalls.

Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to.

I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all,

But I think you're moving too fast.

Then yesterday, she finally got through to me. The title of a story.  Yep, Chasing Waterfalls,  along with a couple character names and a inkling of an idea.   Then realized today I'm not quite ready to start writing just yet, so it wouldn't work for the WD class. So decided I'd work on Yellow Belly Shoppe for Cowards. It's one I began while taking classes at WVU and never quite finished it.   

I keep running across the idea of writing 52 short stories, one a week,  ala Ray Bradbury everywhere on the internet the past few days. And Sage Cohen had mentioned it as well in Fierce on the Page.  Which lead me to Write Practice and Joe Bunting's Let's Write a Short Story.  While I was downloading it, also saw James Scott Bell's How to Write Short Stories which I just had to get.   I just finished reading Bunting's book and love the idea of taking the novels and characters in those stories and using them for short stories.  It serves as a way to get deeply into the characters and their motives and lives.  I've been considering a short story for Greg so I know I'm headed in the right direction. 

I was sitting here thinking I needed a theme for July for the blog and the universe gave it to me.  Molly Totoro who just published Journaling toward Wholeness (which I'm still reading) pointed me in the direction of NaJoWriMO - National Journal Writing Month - which runs January, April, July, and October.  I'm dithering on joining although I know I should, but don't want to commit, and end up doing it anyway.  I'm commitment phobic these days other than those I've made to myself like blogging and morning pages.  

The universe is yelling at me to get my thinking cap on and writing butt in gear.  Time to listen and brainstorm. 

Ray Bradbury's Book Camp for Writers Training Program

Just finished reading Ray Bradbury's writing essays from his Zen in the Art of Writing and feel like I have been given my marching orders for Bradbury's Book Camp for Writers.  Zen is a short but powerful book and lights a fire under you with his passion and zest for life and writing.  There are so many snippets I underlined and wrote down, it is hard to know where to start.

Everything you have ever experienced in life goes into your subconscious as food for your muse.  How do you tap into that food to help you grow as a writer. Bradbury kept a book full of lists of nouns; words that reminded him of experiences. He'd refer to the list and a word or collection of words would spark an idea such as the ones that lead him to write Something Wicked This Way Comes:

The lake. The Night. The Crickets. The Ravine.  The Attic.  The Basement.  The Trapdoor. The Baby.  The Crowd.  The Night Train. The Fog Horn. The Scythe. The Carnival. The Carousel. The Dwarf. The Mirror Maze. The Skeleton.

In his essay How to Keep and Feed the Muse he says:

What is the Subconscious to every man, in its creative aspect, became, for writers, the Muse. 

How do you feed your muse? Read poetry every day which will flex your muscles and expand your senses. Consume essays, travel through the centuries. Learn and fill up your senses with the shape and size of the world, every color, smell, texture and sound. Read Short Stories and novels. Not only those who write the way you think but those that don't. It all serves to stimulate your Muse's tastebuds. And while you are feeding your muse, you have to keep it shape.  And you do that by writing 1000 words a day for the next ten to twenty five years.  Why?

...to learn enough about grammar and story construction so that these become part of the subconscious without restraining or distorting the muse.

In the essay Zen in the Art of Writing, he goes on to say follow your own path, write for the right reasons and not for the money or accolades.

Fame and money are gifts given us only after we have gifted the world with  our best.

Write from the heart and emotions and learn. Keep writing.  There is no failure as long as you keep writing.  His Zen mantra is  WORK -- RELAXATION -- DON'T THINK

So work at your writing and shoot for 1000 to 2000 words a day for the next twenty years.  Write one short story a week for 52 weeks for five years. Much like the surgeon or artist or athlete train for years before they become proficient and successful, so must you train. Quantity provides the experience and with experience eventually comes quality.  As in all things, writing takes practice.  So feed your muse and start practicing.

To feed well is to grow. To work well and constantly is to keep what you have learned and know in prime condition.  Experience. Labor. These are the two sides of the coin which when spun is neither experience nor labor, but the moment of revelation. The coin, by optical illusion, becomes a round, bright, whirling globe of life.

I've never been fond of poetry or essays so this will be interesting, but I'm going to try.  We have plenty of dusty books inherited from hubby's mom that have been languishing on the shelves.   Speaking of which, Bradbury suggested reading as a supplement to his book Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer which coincidentally is one of those dusty books.  I love rabbit trails and synchronicity.  Already read the first two chapters and love it already.

If you need writing motivation for the beginning of the year or at any point, really, be sure to read Zen in the Art of Writing. 


If you have any favorite poetry or essay books, I'd love to hear about them.

Sunday Salon: Freedom!

We are done with 6th grade and hence the elementary school years.  It has been a family affair and an accomplishment we are all quite proud of.  Little did we think when we started homeschooling James and taught him how to read, that we'd still be doing it today.  We took it day to day and year by year and each year decided to just kept going.  We decided for the Junior high years we needed a bit of help, so signed up for the local public home school charter school.  We are hoping to ease James into some classroom situations over the next couple years so he'll be ready for regular high school.  But who knows what the future will bring with schools changing so much and the majority of textbooks all turning electronic. I'll be posting our 6th grade wrap up sometime this week. 

As far as writing is concerned, I didn't accomplish anything last week.  Heck, I feel like I haven't accomplish much this whole round.  Too busy concentrating on making sure James did all his work and passed all his tests to even think about it.  Did manage to get some critiques done on the first and second chapter which were quite helpful.  So now since free from lessons, going to put the pedal to the metal and concentrate on editing my current wip and attempt to finish the 2nd edit by June 30th.  How has everyone else been doing? 

Reading wise, I completed The Bishop by Steven James and the reviews were right. It is an unputdownable book. Have The Pawn on my nook which is the first one in the series so will be going back and reading it, then the rest of the series. Finally read the thriller A Killing Tide by P.J. Adlerman. It's been on my nook forever - one of those Barnes and Noble free friday things. Great mystery with characters who loved to keep secrets which kept creating more crisis.

Finished Blameless by Gail Carriger, the 3rd book in her steampunk mystery series. Lady Maccoon is a hoot and the story is humorous as well as charming and entertaining. Now reading #4 in the series: Heartless.

Next up on the nightstand is Jane Emily: And Witches Children by Patricia Clapp. Discovered it through Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading by Lizzie Skurnick.

And just received Love is Murder edited by Sandra Brown with original short stories from mystery authors: Lori Armstrong, Jeff Ayers, Beverly Barton, William Bernhardt, Allison Brennan, Robert Browne, Pamela Callow, Toni McGee Causey, Lee Child, JT Ellison, Bill Floyd, Cindy Gerard, Heather Graham, Laura Griffin, Vicki Hinze, Andrea Kane, Julie Kenner, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Dianna Love, Jon Land, D.P. Lyle, James Macomber, Carla Neggers, Brenda Novak, Patricia Rosemoor, William Simon, Alexandra Sokoloff, Roxanne St. Claire, Mariah Stewart, and Debra Webb. I've read the majority of these authors so know the stories will be good. Happy Happy Joy Joy!

Blogging wise, now that I will have more time, am looking forward to catching up with all my peeps.  Yesterday, went through my reader and culled it down a bit to my favorite favorite folks, making it more manageable.  Plus I need to sit down and write/schedule a bunch of book reviews to get caught up.  It's been a bit boring around the blog lately. Will be sprucing it up a bit and possibly even transferring over to my own domain name.  Lots of things on the to do list.  


It is week 23 in our quest to read 52 books and highlighted Ray Bradbury on 52 Books blog and have links with Stephen Colbert reading The Veldt on You tube.  Check it out - very well done.   Do you remember the first Bradbury book you ever read?  What was it and when was it?

Happy Summer, ya'll.

 It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.  ~e.e. cummings

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem.  ~David Carradine

What's On Your Nightstand - February

 

It's the last Tuesday of the month which means it is time for What's On Your Nightstand hosted by 5 minutes for Books.   My TBR pile overfloweth and I have instituted a buying ban until I've whittled the pile down a bit.   Do you want to see my whole list - then look here.  I finally decided to organize it by genre, instead of just one long list.  Sometimes I'm in the mood for sci fi, other times mystery or occasionally a non fiction read.  So I split up the list and we'll see how long that works.  I've been picking books out by using Random.org because they all look so good and I just can't make up my mind.  I even put their nifty widget in my sidebar.

What's on my reading plate for this month?  I just started The Bible of Clay by Julia Navarro which is a biblical historical and archaeological thriller wrapped up in one.  A famous archeologist's grand daughter is searching for cuneiform tables which are said to have the first book of Genesis written on them by a young scribe in the time of Abraham.  The problem, they are somewhere in Iraq and it's just days away from the start of the Iraq invasion.   

Monday, March 1st is the start of my Nobel Literature class and the first book we will be reading and analyzing is "Nausea" by Jean Paul Sartre.  This will be an interesting experience dipping into Sartre's existentialistic writings.  

My classic read for the month will be an old historical fiction novel that's be on our shelves for a while:  Stargazer: A Novel of the Life of Galileo by Zsolt De Haranyi.

During Lent I am reading Pope Benedict's The Apostles.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading Jesus of Nazareth which was very enlightening and educational, so looking forward to what he has to say about the apostles.

For my Mind Voyages science fiction challenge, I will be reading two more Hugo winners: "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" by Philip Jose Farmer (1972 Hugo) and "Fahrenheit 451" (1954 Hugo) by Ray Bradbury.

And since I love mysteries and thrillers, I'll be rounding out my reading month with Lethal Harvest (a medical thriller) by William Cutrer,  Untraceable by Laura Griffin, author of the Borderline Series which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Also J.T. Ellison's Judas Kiss and her newest psychological thriller  The Cold Room.  It's supposed to be scary, creepy, chilling good.

What's on your reading plate for this month?



*Ftc notice - all links are for informational purposes only and not associated with Amazon affiliates. 



Note:  I recently tried intense debate for comments. Has a bug I can't figure out and deleted it which means I lost everyone's comments. Smart me however, copied them and rather than asking everyone to comment again, added them back in.  That's why the comments are all anonymous.  Thank you for your patience. Mine is shot!