Ray Bradbury

This revision is from 2023/07/28 06:32. You can Restore it.

on Writing - https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1684627852665180160

Two-word summary: Don't think.

"I don't believe in college for writers. It's dangerous. Professors are too opinionated, too snobbish, too intellectual, and the intellect is a great danger to creativity because you begin to rationalize and make up reasons for things instead of staying with your own basic truth — who you are, what you are, what you want to be.

I've had a sign over my typewriter for 25 years now which reads: "Don't think."

You must never think at the typewriter. You must feel. Your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway. You collect a lot of data. You do a lot of thinking away from your typewriter. But at the typewriter, you should be living.

The worst thing you do when you think is lie. You can make up reasons that are not true for the things you did. And what you're trying to do as a creative person is surprise yourself. Find out who you really are and try not to lie. Try to tell the truth all the time.

The only way to do this is by being very active and very emotional. Make lists of things you hate and things you love (and write about them intensely.)

Then, when it's over, you can think about it. You can look at it and say: "It works or it doesn't work... something's missing here."

But thinking is to be a corrective in our life. It's not supposed to be the center of our life. Living is supposed to be the center of our life. Being is supposed to be the center."