The Bradbury Chronicles by Sam Weller.
Ray Bradbury was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation in November 2000. In his acceptance speech he said:
“[W]ho you’re honoring tonight is not only myself but the ghost of a lot of your favorite writers,” he continues. “And I wouldn’t be here except that they spoke to me in the library. The library’s been the center of my life. I never made it to college. I started going to the library every day for three or four days a week for ten years and I graduate d from the library when I was twenty-eight.”
I learned a lot from reading this book. One piece of advice that Ray was given at a young age was to read biographies. The subjects of the biographies became, it seemed to me, his professors. That’s the experience I had reading his biography.
So what did Bradbury teach me?
First and foremost, live.
There’s something to learn and absorb from every experience you have. People would often ask him where he got his ideas. He had many answers but I think the most illustrative of his outlook on life was in his opening sequence to each episode of The Ray Bradbury Theater:
“Well, right here. All this is my Martian landscape. Somewhere in this room is an African veldt. Just beyond, perhaps is a small Illinois town where I grew up. And I’m surrounded on every side by my magician’s toyshop. I’ll never starve here. I just look around, find what I need, and begin.”
Create daily.
Bradbury really committed to being a writer at 12 years old when he decided that he would write a short story a week. He followed this strict regimen of creation into the twilight of his life. I’ve learned that if you want to be a writer, then write. If you want to be an artist, then paint. Do so constantly. If you want to be a photographer, then capture everything. If you want to be a musician, then make music of everything you feel.
Draw from what you know.
Once Bradbury stopped imitating his favorite authors, he found is own style and drew from his experiences, especially those from childhood. Those are the stories that really had a human element to them and which everyone could relate to. Even the strangest stories in The Martian Chronicles has roots in his childhood and sets him apart from other science fiction writers.
Take risks.
Had Bradbury not been as outgoing, tenacious, imaginative, and true to himself as he was, there’s a chance that a lot of the books that people treasure today would not have been published. He knew not to be self conscience in writing because then he would overthink and the story would fall apart. When magazines wouldn’t publish him because they didn’t get him, he continued to submit stories until they did. When his publishers insisted on marketing him as a science fiction author, he pushed them to market him to a wider audience. Even though Bradbury was involved in the creation of many short films and movies, they were never really successful. Leonard Maltin, film critic and author once said,
“I think it’s fair to say that somebody as distinct an individual as Ray Bradbury was n ever meant to succeed in mainstream Hollywood. Hollywood thrives on people who conform in one way or another…None of those things describes Ray. In a way, it makes sense that he doesn’t have a longer list of movie credentials.”
I’m going to be really honest. I cried at the end of his book. Ray Bradbury not only imagined both beautiful and dark futures for humanity, but he also worked hard to provide solutions. This is true not only in his writing but in his work on the World’s fair, on EPCOT with Disney, with his lectures and pieces of advice. He spoke out against censorship, against fear, against pollution of the planet, and the dangers of technology. So when the book ended, and he was given the 2004 Medal of Arts from former President H.W. Bush, the book ironically ended on a high note. But at that same time, we were headed down a path to a darker future, and I’m not sure we were really listening to his advice. Time will tell, but I only wish that Bradbury was here today to help guide humanity into the bright future portrayed in his beautiful stories.
Sonoran Stargazer 