Tag Archives: ray bradbury

A Small Collection of Tidbits..

Today’s post will be a random hodge-podge of various things I felt like noting. Sometimes, it’s just good to be random.

Yesterday, the news hit that Ray Bradbury had died. I realized that, though I quote Bradbury often (what a brilliant, inspired mind!), I have never actually read any of his work. As a matter of fact, my list of iconic science fiction is pitifully short; it basically consists of Marion Zimmer Bradley…and that’s it. He died at age 91, I hear, a pretty damn good run if you ask me. Are any of you big Bradbury fans? Are there any books in particular you’d recommend to get me started on rectifying this pathetic gap in my repertoire? I grew up more of a fantasy fan than a science fiction one, so I’ve got some catching up to do.

Meanwhile, this post by Lindsay Buroker came to my attention through one of Gene Lempp‘s fantastic Blog Treasure posts, and I had to post it because it’s absolutely brilliant. The methodology that Lindsay outlines is exactly the process I am hoping to follow on my own self-publishing journey, and it’s filled me with so much hope (and excitement!) to get this ball rolling and soon. In a few short weeks, I’ll probably have a book out there. My head will finally be in the game, and it’s only open doors from then on in. This is incredibly inspiring. It’s full speed ahead from here on in!

I’m also happy to announce that my blog has hit over 10,000 views! Wow! And I’m just a few more followers shy of 100. I’ve got Poetry of a Madman, Margaret Laureys, Darren, and lightning pen to thank for the recent jump in numbers. Thank you guys so much for following the blog! There’s nothing like a fell swoop of a handful of new followers (and new people to follow!) to let me know that I’m definitely doing something right here. And tomorrow’s post will be my 400th post. Whoo! Go milestones!

And, lastly, I’m pretty sure the following is one of the best spam comments I’ve received so far:

“This is the penalise About. L.S. Engler blog for anyone who wants to essay out out some this substance. You observance so overmuch its almost effortful to debate with you (not that I truly would want…HaHa). You definitely put a new revolve on a subject thats been scrawled some for geezerhood. Metropolis choke, just extraordinary!“

Put a new revolve on a subject. BRB, about to die from laughing, homygod.

As I said, today’s post is a little random, but sometimes a little random is a good thing. Have a great day, everyone!

Writer Quotes: Bradbury.

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” – Ray Bradbury

At this exact moment in time, something rare is happening with me. I am not stressed out. I am not too terribly worried or concerned, be it with work or money or my writing or anything thing else. I realize that this might be the fact that I have a mug of good coffee and sunshine out my window. It’s payday and I’m a little ahead for the month in my finances and I have met my view goal on this blog for May (thanks to all of you readers!). I have a relaxing day off stretched out ahead of me and so I am having a rare moment of peace and it’s quite pleasant.

Probably by the time noon rolls around, I’ll start getting about to taking care of some errands and trying to fix my clusterfuck of a schedule next weekend, and so the stress is likely to return. Weekends at work are always stressful by default and I’ll have to return to that soon, and I know that, when I do, I will take a second and remind myself of this quote and how true it is that writing can be such a great escape from the world trying to destroy you.

My outlook on the world is no where near as disgusted or disappointed as it probably could be; I believe in living a simple life, which in turn means your concerns tend to be simple as well, but I do know that even with my petty concerns, my writing gets me through it. I wish I could get as drunk on writing as some authors seem capable; to just plunge yourself in as one would toward the bottom of a bottle, where the writing is the sole motivation, the drive of the pen is the only thing, and you give yourself over to the chaos of the words on the page and manage to brush aside the chaos of the world outside, even if only for a little bit. When you’re writing, there’s a semblance of control: this is a world you are creating and, for the most part, you move the pawns, you push the plot, you decide what happens. You definitely don’t have that kind of control in the real world.

I think that’s something a writer (and often the reader as well) has that very few people can have the advantage of: no matter what happens in the world, we can always fall back on the writing. Whether to escape from it, to deal with it, to address it head on and try to open some eyes, we have that escape. It’s both a blessing and a curse; we allow ourselves to get away into our own worlds sometimes, but sometimes, we have a habit of staying too much inside of them, like a drunk falls too much into the illusion of escape with his habit.