Rating: 
Summary: Inspirational & Insightful
Review: This superb collection of essays by Ray Bradbury gives you an unfettered view of his writing technique. Equal parts brainstorming/word association and playing "What If," Bradbury's method of getting words on the page is deceptively simple. Fortunately, Bradbury also goes into detail about how to stock your supply cupboard with people and images and emotions so when the time comes to use them (or they come out to be used), you'll have them at hand. While the book is more geared to the art of short story writing, the overarching theme of writing with gusto works for novelists as well.
Bradbury admits to using the reference to Eastern philosophy as a hook to get readers (those accepting of it as well as those indignant at the notion, yet curious enough to find out what he's talking about). Ultimately, Bradbury doesn't advocate switching from Western to Eastern thought, nor are koans sprinkled throughout the book, but he does address coming to a point where you can work without laboring and achieving a state where your words flow from you and through you effortlessly. In this way of becoming one with the universes of your creation, Bradbury is certainly a Master.
The one area where the book falls short, though, is in handling the revision and editing of your work. It's all well and good to talk of writing with verve and gusto (and it is well and it is good to do so), but Bradbury doesn't explain how to look at it after the fact objectively and with a critical eye. Granted, this isn't a how-to primer, but the enthusiasm of writing the story can be all too easily quashed by rejection notices if what is written well isn't well-written.
Nevertheless, Bradbury's message is inspirational, and if his method has worked for him for 50+ years there's no doubt it can be a successful technique. Even if you come away from the this book without being prepared to follow in his footsteps, you will still be inspired to be passionate about your work.
Rating:
Summary: Pearls of Wisdom strung by one of greatest!
Review: What's there to say: Ray Bradbary--the wisdom of every age visited, thoughts on writing from someone who may not have invented the metaphor and simile and imagery; but he darned sure adopted them as his close sons. Ray Bradbury is in a class all by himself. He's an original! His stories are time capsules of beauty.
Rating:
Summary: Inexpensive volume worth its price many times over
Review: Writers on writing - it is such a pleasure to discover
another case of a writer so excited about his craft
AND willing to allow his readers into his "inner sanctum" -
thus teaching us all in the process.
I have never read any of Bradbury's science fiction:
it is the title of this book, the name recognition, and
the differentness of its format that attracted me.
Like books which inspire writing by Julia Cameron
Natalie Goldberg and Dorothea Brande, this volume
does not belabor grammar, structure and form.
Instead, it works as an opening - and this is where
as a writing teacher I find there is the most struggle.
If you are interested in a discussion of grammar,
structure and form, you can check out Strunk and White
or Woe is I or Elephants of Style.
If you want a book which will usher you into a deeper
experience of writing, get this book and add it to
your library. Given Bradbury's success and the
huge quantity of his writing, there is something to
be said for the purity of his approach and the
commitment to purely getting words on paper.
Rating:
Summary: Zen + Writing + Bradbury = Success
Review: Zen in the Art of Writing is a collection of essays by Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury wrote them throughout his life between the years 1961 and 1986 to tell aspiring authors how to become great writers by using his methods.
Ray Bradbury has every right to write such a book. His many books have granted him fame throughout the United States. His book Fahrenheit 451 about censorship had such an impact that it is part of the curriculum in many public schools.
This book has good advice. He tells that "the first thing a writer should be is-excited." I could tell that he not only meant what he wrote, he followed it. It seems that each word was put on the paper in a splurge of excitement. That is the way he says all writers should write.
He explains the process of writing with three phrases: "Work", "Relaxation", and "Don't Think." He says to write at least a thousand words a day. This starts a habit that makes writing comfortable. The quantity of writing gives experience, which gives quality. Relaxing and not thinking about the writing allows the stories to flow naturally. The "Don't Think" is so you won't be thinking about gaining money or fame.
Bradbury succeeded in this book. He gave some excellent information for aspiring fiction writers to use, and inspired the reader to go and write a story of their own. This is a good book and is interesting enough to warrant a read even for non-writers.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for real writers
Review: Zen in the Art of Writing is my favorite kind of writing book. One that doesn't tell you how to write, but how to be a writer. Those are the best kind. A collection of essays from various sources and points in his career, Bradbury gives us many glimpses into the kind of writer he is, touching on such subjects as how to keep and feed a Muse, where ideas come from and what it takes to be a writer. You won't find any discussions of plot, character, pacing, etc. here. Instead you'll find inspiration, ideas, passion and a little bit of who Ray Bradbury is. Just like a story. A few excerpts: You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. A good idea should worry us like a dog. We should not, in turn, worry it into the grave, smother it with intellect, pontificate it into snoozing, kill it with the death of a thousand analytical slices. At heart, all good stories are the one kind of story, the story written by an individual [writer] from [her] individual truth. And finally... WORK
RELAX
DON'T THINK! Zen and the Art of Writing remains an excellent book for any artist to read. It would be almost impossible to not catch Bradbury's enthusiasm, running down the pages as it does. Again, just as in good fiction.
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