10 cents

Ray Bradbury was never one of my favorite writers. This was not entirely his fault -- Farenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles were inflicted upon me as an unsuspecting 5th and 10th grader. As a matter of principal (and as a protest against The Man), I disliked -- distrusted -- any book that was assigned to me by the ruling class. Teachers, what did they know?

So Ray landed first landed on my desk in 5th grade. Me and 27 other kids had to read The Martian Chronicles, then produce a written report and an artistic interpretation of the novel. We could choose any medium we wanted including bronze and marble for those with the requisite skills and wealthy patrons. I worked with colored pencils and tan construction paper. Spaceships were my thing, and even though the teacher had assigned the book, I was looking forward to interpreting Martians in the two-dozen colors of Crayola pencils.

I slogged through the book in a day or so. Martians getting ready for astronauts. Super. I wrote it up for The Man and under true inspiration drew the Martian landscape with various Martians hanging out, waiting for the humans. My report probably netted a B+ but my picture hung on the wall just under the cursive alphabet along the north side of the classroom. Then again, so did everyone else's. There were no bronze statues submitted, nor earthenware pots with tiled martian collages and, sadly, no interpretations done in chocolate chip cookie dough or cake.

So where am I going with this? On a whim, I picked up Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury at Half Price Books. It is a small collection of essays on writing written during the later half of his career. They are mostly personal recollections of the efforts he spent on different novels and short stories and unlike the recollections of other time-worn veterans is not that interesting. To me. But like I said, Ray and I aren't the best of friends.

But I did find one part interesting in the chapter on Farenheit 451. In it, he describes how he came to write the novel down to the hardware and cost:

Finally, I located just the place, the typing room in the basement of the library at the University of California at Los Angeles. There, in neat rows, were a score or more of old Remington or Underwood typewriters which rented out at a dime a half hour. You thrust your dime in, the clock ticked madly, and you typed wildly, to finish before the half hour ran out. … Time was indeed money. I finished the first draft in roughly nine days. [p69-70]

The book cost him less than ten bucks. In the process, he built up the discipline to crank out words. In other parts of the book, he writes that he could routinely write a thousand words before lunch and squander the rest of the day with his family or maybe playing bongos. Note that he doesn't say he played bongos, nor does he hint at it, but maybe he did. Why not?

Readers tend to see their authors as suffering creatures who pour their souls onto the paper in an agonizing two years of hell. But like every job, the true professionals make it look easy and can rattle off a book with little or no pain. Once Ray had the knack, why not sit back and dictate Something Wicked This Way Comes over a pitcher of mimosas, a cigar and Variety? Suffering is for suckers.

Wouldn't you like to crank out a thousand words or the equivalent work units in your profession? Maybe 200 lines of code or 20 record-setting laps at Watkins Glen. Whatever your thing is. Whatever else I can say about Ray, I respect 1000 words by lunch. Maybe it would make a good inspirational poster?

Where are my Crayola pencils?