Thursday, April 13, 2006
Not another how to book ...
.... that would be Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing, according to Stefanie Hollmichel in this post at So Many Books: The Art of Writing . Stefanie rightly discerns that a lot of the how-to books are more about marketing than writing. The best book I know of on what it takes to be a professional writer is Somerset Maugham's The Summing Up. (Hat tip, Maxine Clarke.)
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Zen was required for a freshman comp class at my school, and though I was well beyond that, I bought it because it was a) by Bradbury and b) slim enough to squeeze into my course load. Best extracurricular reading I did that semester. Bradbury's enthusiasm and passion for his craft was contagious, and I breezed through my own writing courses. To me, that's the purpose of a good book on writing: it sends its reader to the page.
ReplyDeleteHi Jody,
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely correct. You should write, first and foremost, because that's what you want to do, not because you may become famous or rich or whatever (there are much easier ways to become famous or rich).