TL:DR
- Ever wonder how a book is published on Amazon? Come watch me do it!
- The Tower of Babel 2: The Currency Edition
- I read Zen and the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, one of my favorite authors growing up. I’m struck by the similarities between his writing process and mine. I share some quotes from his book about it.
What's New in FabianSpace
I want you all to know that I'm hard at work on Idol Speculations. Vern is cracking me up! In the meantime, I am publishing Good Intentions June 26--and I'm making an event of it. If you've ever wondered what it's like to publish on Amazon (KDP), then sign up for the webinar which I'm holding at 7 PM.
The New Tower of Babel OR Adventures in Splitting the Check
This is another CWCL adventure. A bunch of us decided we wanted to get shawarma and eat it at the hotel. (The Holiday Inn, not the Hilton, although both begin with H. Read last week's newsletter if you don't get the joke.) Ann went to pick it up, and Michelle gave her cash to pay for all of us. At dinner, we'd pay Michelle back. Easy, right?
Nope.
Michelle only takes cash. Half the folks there don't have cash. The ATM machine is not working at the hotel. Ann has cash, but can't take Zelle and doesn't remember her Venmo. I have cash and Zelle but not Venmo. No one had enough cash for themselves and everyone else. As we spent 15 minutes trying to decide who could take what from whom and turn it into cash, we came to realize this was the new confusion of languages. We'd never be able to finance the Tower of Babel!
In the end, I went upstairs to see what I had left and came down with 14 dollar bills, four quarters, and a moist towelette. I thought this was hilarious. I'm not sure Michelle was as amused.
The shawarma was terrific, though.
Ray Bradbury and Writing
My friend, Maureen Pratt, gave me Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing for my birthday. It’s a collection of his essays on inspiration and writing.
Bradbury was one of my favorite authors in my teen years, although I mostly know him from his science fiction. I loved Martian Chronicles. Even today, I close my eyes and see the sandships from the miniseries adaptation.
I remember reading that, once he decided to be a writer, he dedicated himself to writing and submitting a story a week. I had not realized that he made his decision at the age of 12 and wrote 1,000 words a day until the day he sat at the computer, tears in his eyes and his neck hairs standing on end, knowing he had written his first True story—the one that was uniquely his. What a feeling!
It was cool to see how some of his thoughts on writing so closely match mine. Here are a couple of examples:
- Pg 54: “[My stories] run and bite me on the leg—I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.”
- Pg 121 “I intend my plays to be first entertaining and grand fun that will stimulate, provoke, terrify, and, one hopes, amuse. This, I think, is important, to tell a good story, to write the passions well, on to the end. Let the residue come when the plays are over and the crowd goes home. Let the audience wake in the night and say, Oh, that’s what he’s up to! Or the next day cry, he means us! He means us! He means now! Our worlds, our problems, our delights and our despairs.
- Pg 138: “The time will come when your characters will write your stories for you, when your emotions, free of literary cant and commercial bias, will blast the page and tell the truth.”
I’m going to share more thoughts of his during other newsletters. He has a lot of great advice on writing.
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