Category: Writers on Writing

In the spirit of the “All Summer in a Day” writing prompt, today’s “Writers on Writing” will focus on prolific science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. An American author and screenwriter known best for Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury worked in science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery fiction, dystopian fiction, and many other genres. He received the Prometheus Award for Fahrenheit 451 in 1984, was given the National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush in 2004, and the Ray Bradbury Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America organization was named in his honor. Needless to say, he’s a fantasy/science fiction icon.

I’ve honestly only read two short stories by Bradbury (at least which I know were written by him), “All Summer in a Day” and “Mars is Heaven!” I’m also fascinated and amused beyond all belief by the fact that Fahrenheit 451 is among the most challenged books of recent decades. He also gave writers–and human beings overall–many gems of wisdom, including the one I am discussing today:

Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.

–Ray Bradbury

The last two lines of that advice immediately put Yoda in my head. “Do or do not, there is not try.”

You could argue that Bradbury’s remarks expand on Yoda’s advice. Bradbury explicitly explains that which Yoda alludes to: overthinking something like a creative act disrupts the flow, which brings the entire act to a screeching halt. You cannot think too much on what you’re doing because you’ll start to imagine all that could go wrong and doubt yourself; when you doubt yourself, you almost certainly fail.

While I am horrible at following this advice, I know from personal experience that Bradbury and Yoda are right.

Most of my writer’s blocks come from thinking too much. I’ll start wondering, “Does this dialogue mesh with the character? If I do [blank] to [blank] character, will the readers hate me? Will anyone even read this? Why should I bother?”

You can see how that sort of train of thought can kill the creativity. If we think too much, we become too self-conscious. When we grow too self-conscious, we doubt everything we do and then nothing gets done.

In addition to the self-conscious inhibitions discussed by Bradbury, thinking can get us side-tracked. If you’ve ever watched The Big Bang Theory, you’ll remember this scenario from the episode “The Focus Attenuation”. Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj take a weekend away from the girls–and, theoretically, all other distractions–to try and focus on their work to make a breakthrough. They get to work but, unfortunately, thinking as they worked led to many tangents, including watching pigeons play ping-pong and determining if Bill Murray misuses “negative reinforcement” in Ghostbusters. Needless to say, the characters didn’t get any work done.

Thought seems important for creative acts. After all, where do these ideas come from but our thoughts? Still, we have to be careful to not think too much. Figuring out the logistics of a fight scene or deciding if dialogue is working or not is best left for the editing/rewriting stages. Before all else you need to just get the ideas out and then you can make sense of the babble later.

Writing doesn’t work this way for all writers. Anne Rice is pretty open about how, in her process, she won’t move on to the next page in a book until she’s perfected the one she’s on. Perhaps you, as a writer, need to think enough to work out how exactly your character gets from scene A to scene B before you can continue to write.

For many writers, like me, Bradbury’s words ring true; once pen touches paper or fingers touch keyboard (after the initial outline/notes stage), the conscious mind needs to shut off and let the words flow. Otherwise we become self-conscious, doubt ourselves, and/or go entirely off-track. There’s a time and place for everything, and often the time for thinking is not when you’re writing.

Do you have any additional insights? Comments on Ray Bradbury’s advice or the writer overall? Start a discussion in the comments section below. And if you want to stay informed on the posts of The Writer’s Scrap Bin, sign up for email notifications in the menu to the left.

As always, feel free to contact me with any ideas for or questions about this blog at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with Sandra Cisneros’s work lately. Last week my Master’s program discussed her short story collection, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. Overall the stories are captivating, unique, and spiced with Latinx–particularly Chicana–charm and passion. “Woman Hollering Creek” and “Never Marry a Mexican” depict striking moments of female empowerment, but “Remember the Alamo” has stuck in my mind. Given the timing, I think it’s fitting that I write about Cisneros for this “Writers on Writing”.

I’ve chosen a quote by Cisneros which hearkens back to Virginia Woolf:

For a writer, for the solitude to write, you don’t need a room of your own, you need a house.

Sandra Cisneros

She has many quotes on writing, her early life, culture, etc., that are worth reading. You can find several on BrainyQuote. I picked this quote because I find her expansion on Woolf’s original comment to be thought-provoking.

As I discussed in a previous “Writers on Writing”, Woolf’s comment originally applied to effects that women’s duties and financial/legal dependence on their husbands have on their writing. Cisneros may also be referring to female writers, particularly those from cultures similar to hers, given the subjects of several of her stories.

Honestly, I don’t think there’s much “may” about it. Many of her works highlight the oppression and discouragement of speech towards women in Mexican cultures. It’s been the subject of several academic essays, including Jacqueline Doyle’s “Haunting the Borderlands: La Llorana in Sandra Cisneros’s ‘Woman Hollering Creek'” (which is available to read on JSTOR).

Cisneros’s suggestion about needing a house of one’s own to right is not too different from Woolf’s original comment. Rather, it’s an extension. Cisneros is implying that it’s not enough for female writers to just have a room of their own. Instead, they must have their own entire house, they must be in charge of their entire households.

I can’t disagree with this extension, especially after reading Cisneros’s stories. A woman can have a room that appears to be her own in the house but, in reality, it’s a ruse. If she does not have a house of her own, one which she can at least claim as much rule over as her partner (particularly a husband), even “her” room is not truly her own. Therefore, to have only a room of her own is not enough freedom and independence–spatially, financially, emotionally–for a female writer to reach her potential.

I also explained that while Woolf’s initial intent still rings true today, the sentiment can be expanded to include all writers. With this interpretation in mind, Cisneros’s words suggest that all writers need an incredible amount of space, seclusion, and independence.

This idea is one with which writers have wrestled for a long time. How much space is enough space? How much independence do we need to write?

All writers need a space where they can retreat and write without interruption. It can be a room, an office, a rented house. We’re all different and so we all need different zones of personal space to get work done. In regards to space, then, Cisneros’s words could be true or false depending on the individual writer.

The financial aspect, however, is not such an easy or pleasant answer.

Unfortunately, society’s views on writers and their financial independence can vary based on many things, including age, race, and, yes, gender. My post on #ThingsWomenWritersHear revealed that female writers still hear such comments as “oh, aren’t you lucky that your husband supports you so you can write” (even if they don’t have husbands). It’s assumed that female writers have to–or just do–rely on their husbands for money while they write. However, they need financial independence so that they avoid being scrutiny for being a “bad” wife and/or mother for focusing on their writing. That’s without mentioning that many, many female writers just don’t have husbands and support themselves anyway. A dependence on a husband, partner, parents, or even a day job financially can detract from writing time, and so tremendous financial independence is necessary for a female writer to succeed in actuality and under societal criticism.

There’s another side to this coin for male writers. Men are still seen as the breadwinners, no matter what their situation actually is. If anyone finds out that they don’t make much money or contribute the most financially to their families, the men are ridiculed. Writing, quite truthfully, is not seen as a high-earning job. The resulting income is unreliable at best. If a male writer with a family focuses on his writing, he will be considered selfish for not bringing home more for his family or weak because his wife or partner provides the primary income. They’re considered failures. Financial independence–i.e. a bachelor life in which no one depends on them and they don’t depend on anyone–appears to be the only solution.

I realize that this post has presented society as horrible and writing as a lonely career path. The sad thing is that such scenarios cannot only happen but are common. Complete financial independence seems to be the only way for anyone to write without distraction, judgment, or societal restraints. (That last way probably still isn’t true as negative stereotypes and expectations follow us so long as we are who we are and society remains the way that it is.) However, I don’t think that you should walk away from this post in total despair.

A “house of one’s own” is not necessarily a physical house that you control, alone space, or even complete financial independence. Instead, it is a state of life in which you feel free, confident, independent, and supported. It can be a house out in the suburbs with a white fence and a nuclear family, only the husband and wife run the household and their lives together and support each other’s ventures. It can be an apartment in the middle of an overpopulated city where a single woman writers with student loans still looming over her but a secure job with flexible hours and parents who live nearby and will always support her and help her no matter what. It can even be a mobile tiny house parked in a field, the owner a writer who writes all day, is debt-free, and whose only family are pets and friends. A “house of one’s own” is the perfect set of circumstances, whatever those may be for you. It is wherever and whenever you can write without life, burdens, and societal expectations weighing you down.

I doubt that Cisneros and Woolf intended anyone to have this interpretation. But hey, so long as it gets us writing, does it really matter?

Did you like this post? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments and sign up for email alerts. Also be on the look-out for my post on the tangled web that is writing and politics.