I've been reading a book by one of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury, called Zen in the Art of Writing, which is filled with fun facts about his life. It's a series of essays that prompt you to look within your own memories to call upon ideas for writing: as long as you have your memories, you will never be without material.
By reading this book I had an unexpected new idea for a novel come forth just like that. I didn't rack my brain for an idea, it came from reflection, triggered by these thought provoking chapters.
Now I will have two ideas battling to be written this November--I'll need to start a list, or perhaps a file, as Bradbury had. Mine will undoubtedly be digital.
There were a few astonishing excerpts about Bradbury's life in his book, one of them being the rise of digital and futuristic ideas in his writing--did you know he was hired to help imagine Spaceship Earth in Epcot?--versus his actual methods of writing. And this is my favorite part.
He started out as a very poor writer, publishing a short story a week to pay for his $30 a month rent and feed his wife and children. When his daughters got a little older, he would get distracted from work because he wanted to play with them. So he went in search of an office, which he could not afford, and found his way into a California public library. This new "office," and the countless books on its never-ending shelves, inspired Fahrenheit 451.
Ironically enough, the futuristic book was written on a typewriter, and I was amazed and inspired while reading about this object. The rental typewriter is one of the most motivational tools I've ever heard of for a writer. He would place a dime in it, and he would get half an hour to type. For a man who was lucky to make $1,000 a year, this was expensive. It forced him to write as many words as possible in a half hour, and he eventually wrote the first draft of his first (intentional) novel, which cost him nine dollars and eighty cents.
I wish I had a dime typewriter--or maybe a dollar typewriter--to motivate my writing. To me it sounds like a futuristic tool. I'm pushing the idea for an app. How about a writing program that charges you by the half hour to use it, and then goes blank, until you pay another dollar? It would have to be very appealing. Maybe Scrivener could make it work?
The idea of writing my next novel on such a program sounds like a great option--I do very well with motivational tools like that.
I wonder if Mr. Bradbury ever imagined such tools as Ilys or Write or Die, like he imagined ATMs and earbuds. I'm positive, in his writing, he could have envisioned something greater.
