Bradbury’s Influence

I’ve been reading Ray Bradbury: the Last Interview this last week. I’d recently come to realize how much Bradbury had influence my own writing. I had not thought about it because I wasn’t a reader who was immersed in his writing. But definitely, I encountered Something Wicked This Way Comes at a crucial time in my formation as a writer. The lyricism of his prose always stayed in the back of my mind, sinking in roots in my own imagination.

Lately, I’ve been thinking more and more about his outlook on writing, both stylistically and in terms of craftsmanship. The following is a quote from the book, about the importance of writing for love of the work.

People will always give advice to a writer to slant, to write for the money. Don’t do that. Don’t do that. You will sicken and die. If you turn away from you— who you are, what you are, what you dream, what you need— you are going to wind up so unhappy , so miserable. It’s not worth it. Being poor isn’t so bad as long as you have your imagination and what you are. Being rich for the wrong reason is a lousy business. You aren’t rich at all. I’ve known a lot of Hollywood writers over the years who made ten times my income, and they were profoundly unhappy. Because they wrote things they never should have written. They never went on vacation. They never went to Europe and saw London or Paris or Rome. They were afraid that if they ever left Hollywood, they would be replaced. And they were probably right. They were replaceable. But when you write from within, if you write from within and are true to who you are, you are original and you cannot be replaced. No wonder these writers were scared! Nothing was written out of their hearts or ganglia. And so the lesson is, of course, that you must never turn away from the essential you. If you turn away from who you are, you will sicken. You will age ahead of your years. And so you must learn to turn inwards , to your own experiences, to your own memories, your passions, your loves and hatreds— you will then begin to summon the essence of you.

Bradbury, Ray; Weller, Sam (2014-12-02). Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview: And other Conversations (The Last Interview Series) (Kindle Locations 818-828). Melville House. Kindle Edition.

I am trying to hold onto that love of my stories, that love of the craft.  It’s so easy in the regular beat of trying to get on with life to lose track of loving your stories. It’s so easy to just be focused on getting the next patch written for the paycheck. I want to keep Ray’s words in my soul, so that even the “work-a-day” writing jobs are filled with that love that comes from the core of me.