I like the notion of small steps
and where they can take us.
I was thinking of something Ray Bradbury said in an interview with
Dana Gioia about writing his novel, Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury lived in a lively house with abundant noise thanks to two small children and life - the way it teems all around us.
Bradbury told Gioia he had a story he wanted to get down on paper about why the world needs books and the ideas that live in them. He couldn’t afford to rent an office but one day he happened upon the typing rooms in the basement of the UCLA library.
For 10 cents a half hour, he could type away. He created a society where books were burned, a character named Montag, a fireman who burned those books, and a young girl named Clarisse who liked to taste the rain and question things, a young person who would make Montag think and bring about change.
He had his idea, a series of days and a bag full of dimes.
I like to picture it: each morning, he stepped down into that basement, enveloped in the clacking of keys, popping another dime into the coin slot, nurturing his idea until it became a novel.
Bradbury told Gioia he had a story he wanted to get down on paper about why the world needs books and the ideas that live in them. He couldn’t afford to rent an office but one day he happened upon the typing rooms in the basement of the UCLA library.
For 10 cents a half hour, he could type away. He created a society where books were burned, a character named Montag, a fireman who burned those books, and a young girl named Clarisse who liked to taste the rain and question things, a young person who would make Montag think and bring about change.
He had his idea, a series of days and a bag full of dimes.
I like to picture it: each morning, he stepped down into that basement, enveloped in the clacking of keys, popping another dime into the coin slot, nurturing his idea until it became a novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment