Quote of the Week...from Ray Bradbury

Writing is not a serious business.  It's a joy and a celebration. You should be having fun with it.
                                                                    ---Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) was one of the great science fiction writers of the twentieth century, penning books like Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Dandelion Wine among others.  But my favorite work of his was the short story The Pedestrian, an eerily prophetic piece that hit me close to home...read it through this link to Internet Archive.  It's obvious that Bradbury loved to write, but that does not mean that he didn't really take it serious. I think his above quote was meant to say that it's okay to enjoy writing stuff for its own sake...and that he's very serious about this viewpoint!  I'm kind of like that with this blog of mine: it's a joy and celebration...and fun.  But it does require a bit of mental concentration and effort, and to that extent, it is serious...at least while I'm actively engaged in the process of writing.  But although Ray Bradbury made quite a career for himself with his literary output, he correctly implies...as I see it...that writing with the primary motivation to earn money from it isn't a very good idea, nor is it necessarily fruitful to expect other people to all want to read I've written and eagerly anticipate what I'll do next.  No, writing should be done primarily as a self-motivated activity that justifies itself...no harm, though, in allowing for that possible fame and fortune as a bonus by-product...