A Yen for Writing

There is advice for writers, and then there are the essays of Ray Bradbury as set out in Zen in the Art of Writing.

Written across three decades and published in 1994, they are at once whimsical and deadly serious - full of, as he puts it, the Zest and Gusto with which every writer should approach her work.  Without zest and gusto, the writer/artist/composer is only half alive - whether the passion of the moment is love or anger, admiration or indignation, by hurling that passion at the page with zest and gusto, the writer will produce something real.

There are shelves in bookshops that groan under the weight of tomes advising the writer on the roads to success, the techniques for perfection, and the rules for marketing the finished product.  Go to the 808s on the library shelf and the same books can be borrowed at no cost.  Each of them is, in the end, the opinion of a writer or editor or literary agent.  Much of the advice they contain may be useful - but only if you have been able to summon up the anger or the joy that will give you the strength - the "Zest and Gusto" - needed to hurl the mingled contents of your memory and imagination at the page.

Bradbury's essays inspire me and make me envious - all at the same moment.  I have written, in fits and starts - for much of my life.  There were short stories and long ones, plays, screen plays, letters, diaries and journals (both personal and official), small town newspapers, business reports, official reports of various sorts, and publicity pieces for local events and organisations  There was plenty to write about, but timidity intervened too often.  I had heard about the Tall Poppy Syndrome, and wanted to keep my head.  My passion did not overpower my sense of self-preservation nearly often enough for my writing to progress to the point of publication.

The passion was there - I could be as angry or as joyful as the next man, but that old fashioned virtue of Restraint held me back.  There is a virtue in holding your counsel close, listening and watching - but there comes a time when you have to hurl back at the world all the words, the sights, the sounds, the joy, and the agony, that you have taken from it.  A time to set it out in a form that suits you, that pleases you, that says it your way - or else let it turn to dust in the silence and darkness, and die with you.

Bradbury uses his essays to offer advice on how to write, but more importantly, he offers lived experience on how and why he wrote and lived, and he does so with passion and humour.  He shows, not tells, why passion and humour are crucial to writing, to art, and to life, and he shows that whatever the art you wish to practice, it is worth practicing - never minding what anyone else thinks of it, but only minding what you yourself have to say.

And he shows that the only way to do something well is to do it - again and again and again - that an author must work until work ceases to be work and becomes relaxation.  Sounds odd, but I am beginning to understand what he means.  It is a philosophy that applies equally to any human endeavour - the athlete, the archer, the painter, the seamstress, the singer, the soldier - all will work (or a better word might be practice) again and again, aiming always to do better now than before.

Inspiration is always waiting in the wings but can do nothing for us until we begin to work.

Strangely enough, the advice at the end of the book seems to be contradicting the advice at the beginning - but it is not. By working, no matter what, we find that the zest and gusto, the passion and enthusiasm, have been there waiting for us to start.  The Muse will not write for us, but will offer us help if we are willing to pick up our pen and start tossing words at the page.  It is a circular process, the more we work, the easier it gets, the easier it gets, the more we want to work - and it stops being "working at a craft" and begins to be practicing our art.