Ray Bradbury on Writing Persistently

Ray Bradbury discusses the persistence which led him to write stories rich with personal meaning.

Day 4 Lesson  /  Learning to Write:

<--Persistence  -  Language  -  Neurology-->

Persistence Pays Dividends

Writers Write.  Good writers write a lot.  As you'll see in this interview, Ray Bradbury got his start by writing an average of a story a week for years before he was finally published.  And even after publication of that first story - even after years of having stories accepted by magazines - he still felt that something was missing from his writing.  And so he kept writing until he finally reached a breakthrough.

Inspiration Versus Technique

From this interview, we can guess that Bradbury didn't wait for inspiration before he began writing.  His ego kept him going despite the rejection slips from magazines.  And he points out that his first stories were not that good, but the effort he put in certainly gave him the skills to write better and better stories. By the time he had the inspiration to write "The Lake," he would have already mastered all the elements of sentence structure, narrative, and characterization.  For someone writing a few million words a year, these techniques would become second-nature.  And this is important.  When he did have the inspiration to write "The Lake," he already had the writing tools ready.

To see why this persistence served Bradbury so well, read on to see how Learning a Language is similar to Learning to Writing.

Day 4 Lesson  /  Learning to Write:

<--Persistence  -  Language  -  Neurology-->