Anyone here taken Bradbury's advice?

Not me.

I think in general it's a good idea -- if you're serious about writing, you should keep writing. Write frequently. And if you write 250 stories in 5 years, chances are you're going to find some gems in the pile.

For me, though, if it becomes a laborious task, I'd burn out quickly. I know myself too well. I write what moves me, and not just put words on paper. Besides, most of my ideas are feature-length. I don't usually think in short-story terms.

Stories

blargh said:

I read Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing a few months ago. In one section on short story writing he recommends that you write a story a week, 52 weeks a year for 5 years, and at that point you'll have all the dreck out and will be writing "the good stuff." Wow, over 250 stories....I'm not sure I even have that many in me; I've written roughly 20 shorts, 38 weekly columns, a 50,000 word novel, and 10,000 words into another in the last 3 years. So, what do you think? Is a story a week a good idea?

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I don't think it's a bad idea at all, but probably not as important as it was in Bradbury's youth. There just aren't as many short story markets today, and anthologies are drug on the market.

Writing nearly each and every day is important. Without doing so you need more talent than anyone deserves to become a successful writer. I don't, however, think all this writing must be short story writing. I think you can get all the dreck out just as easily by writing a couple of thousand words per day on novels. The important thing is to place your butt in the chair and write. Do this nearly everyday for long enough and you'll probably succeed. Don't do this, and odds are extremely high that you'll fail.

Having said this, I do write quite a few short stories, though not as many as I did when I first started.

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Hm. Y'know, I think I've read "Zen in the Art of Writing" more times than I can possibly count. It's one of those books that I've always read whenever I have problems writing. The first few times I read it, it filled me with such excitement and energy.

I think that if you can do it comfortaby and happily, go for it. I do think that it's a bad idea to force out 52 stories, though. I tried it when I read that section and stopped after a few weeks because the stories were starting to become forced and based on dredged ideas. I had enough ideas that I wanted ot let develop and explore in my own time, rather than writing frantically. Sometimes I'll write a story a day. Sometimes, I get one out every couple of weeks. Sometimes, I just work on longer stuff.

If you do it, make sure it's fun. Then, it's downright cool. Just be careful. If you force it, you might burn yourself out.

Another really fun thing to try is Harlan Ellison's short-story writing that he's done before. The brilliant concept of Freestyle Writing. I love it. Where you sit down with a typewriter (preferably in a coffee shop or bookstore window) and someone gives you an idea, and you write a story then and there and post it in the window. I've never done it publically (chickenchickenchicken) but I've done it myself at home, and it's delightful. If you can do it in public, do it! It's cool. I think more people should do it. Otherwise, you might try doing it in your kitchen or something with an idea provided by...whomever you can ask without sounding like a creep.

(Anything done to keep you writing is good. Anything that stops you is bad.)

Bruce Holland Rogers must do something very similar. You can sign up for 3 stories a month from him - $5 and he emails you 3 new stories every month for a year. A bargain, as he's one of my favourite short fiction writers of the moment. http://www.shortshortshort.com/

There's a challenge going on now in "Prompts and Games" forum: A story a week. If you'll like to participate, come join us.

Words

Maryn said:

They're still teaching numbers similar to Bradbury's--our daughter mentioned a college class in which the teacher told them that by the time they'd written a million words of fiction, they'd probably be pretty good--or as good as they were going to get without substantially more effort than writing alone.

Depending on the length of the short story, Bradbury has you writing something past 625,000 words to clear the drek (for 250 2500-word stories).

Maryn, who can use a calculator

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Yes, but don't forget rewrites and revisions. I suspect 250, 2,500 word stories would actually be closer to 2,000,000 words, when you count every thing from first draft to final.

Funny, but I think the drek is there, no matter when you start selling. I sold the first draft of the first short story I ever wrote. I sold the first three short stories, and the first draft of the first novel, and a bunch of other stuff right away. All within a couple of months.

But there came a point down the road, probably somewhere around that million word mark, when I sat down and wrote something unlike anything I'd done before. Something good, something that was pure me.

It really was like hitting a vein of gold beneath a landfill of garbage. I think too many writers, even widely published ones, continue to tunnel through the garbage, rather than working straight down to the vein of gold.

Either way, I believe the garbage is there, though I didn't see it or smell it until after I'd tunneled my way through.

I'm taking his advice right now, I'm trying to get a story a week down or at least 1,000 words a night. I'll let you all know where I'm at in five years time!

Just pleasepleaseplease don't fall into a rut while you're cranking out short stories like an industry. When you settle down to write one, you should literally feel your brain stretching as you push the story, and yourself. If you're going to take Bradbury's advice on cranking out stories, please do take the rest of his advice on how to go about it as well.

I think that when you finish a good story, you should be exhausted, exhilerated, amazed, and a little scared. It should look intimately familiar to you, and it should seem just a bit alien to you as well.

Bradbury said, 52 stories a year. He also said that you should write from the heart, from the attic, from the cobwebs in your brain and the dust motes in your soul (well, he didn't say exactly that, but something to the effect). Remember all the advice.

*trips and falls off soapbox*

Please consider joining "A Story A Week" in the "Prompt and Games" forum... A new prompt every week, and you can add yours, too.

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19031

Might post the story I finished last weekend in there.

I keep looking at that thread, and it bugs me because that's exactly the sort of competition (or challenge, or whate'er you want to call it) that I love competing in. It's very high on the list of "Things i will do when I gain some copious free time" which, more or less, means diddly.

If anyone can do it, do it. Even if you produce a crap story, you've produced a story, and you're 2000 words toward your million-words-of-garbage goal.

I did have that kind of output at one time. I sold a lot of stories, but then I crashed and burned and have yet to really recover.

Not at the prompting of Ray Bradbury, but based on my own naivete, I tried this sort of thing when I was in junior high. I just decided to force my self to write little short stories. I agree that it is important to "get the crap out," as some writers would call it. But I definately don't think this technique works for everyone, if anyone.

I agree with those here who have said that you fall into a rut, and begin forcing ideas that you don't really like. If you know while you're writing something that you don't like it, it probably won't come out any good. Now some of these stories I wrote were read by other people in my class who seemed to enjoy them. But for myself, even as a junior high school student, I thought they were not very good, and I wanted to throw them away. Of course, the point of this exercise is to "get the crap out," but I think that even as you're doing this, you should be striving to write something excellent, even if you aren't quite capable of it yet. I think that's the way you learn, by trying harder, not by making yourself write just anything. If you try, it's possible that you might write a few things while you're still learning that are actually pretty good.

I feel that I'm a better writer now than I was half a million words ago...

Er. Realize this thread has been quiet for awhile now, but I had a thought on it. So I'll quack into the void for a moment, and then life can resume.

I think the dangerous thing about understanding that you have a million or so words of crap that you'll write before you write your good stuff is, it can feel like a "Get out of jail free" card. It can b ea trap.

I knew a guy who liked the advice and spent a long time writing slop stories because, as he figured it, he was just slogging through the lousy stuff before he would start to shine. Problem was, he wasn't slogging enough and was more or less just floating. A million words later, still crap but from a more frustrated miserable writer.

Everything you write is a diamond, is a miraculous story that will reshape your world and resonate brilliantly -- perhaps violently -- through your reader's soul. It will move them, it will perhaps scare them, and it will be the greatest piece of English literature, and you should damn well believe that when you write it.

If, ten hours/days/years later when the embers have cooled and it is no longer your Darling, if you look at the story and understand that it is crap...fine. But it was a footstep along the road anyway, so not all lost.

While writing, though, treat your story like it is what the English language was made for.

This concludes my quack into the abyss. Please resume your regularly scheduled lives.

I understand what he's saying. I wish I were able to write a story a week. I have at least ten ideas a week, but I never manage to get that many ideas fleshed out on paper. It's lack of time. A short story takes me weeks, often months, to write from start to finish.

Marie

I never set out to write garbage. That's something foreign to my work ethic. But I wasn't writing as well as I thought I was. Bradbury is right.

I should add, now that I think about it, that I reallyreallyreally wasn't trying to imply that anyone here might slop off a few dozen short stories just to 'get the crap out.' It was just a peevish irritation of mine which I felt the need to voice.

Like I said, just quacking into the void. My first assumption with anyone is always that they love their craft as deeply and thoroughly as I do my writing, and I assume that they are doing it for the joy right up 'til I find out otherwise. (Even then, I hardly disown them.)

There, I have now clarified as best as can be managed when talking out of a mouth with a foot in.

If I had the time...

... I'd be able to finish every story I start. That would probably amount to the story-a-week gem. As it is, I try my best to write down the general idea/opening lines/synopsis and file on my computer, hoping to go back to each one when I have time.

I do feel my brain "stretching" (as someone mentioned earlier) when I settle down to revise. Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it hurts. But it's a sweet pain.

Yes, my writing has gotten better over the years. But first drafts still contain dregs. I live for revision!
If I didn't have to live in the real world, I'd have more time to write. And revise.

I always took comfort from Gene Wolfe, who says that his first drafts are absolutely wretched and only have the shape of his story, that they don't turn into anything he's proud of until later.

Considering the amazing quality of Gene Wolfe's work, I would say that's valuable for anyone who dislikes their first drafts.

(Me, I like each draft thereafter only marginally more; I like my first drafts)

Then, there's the depressing school of writers such as Rod Serling, who wrote so much and so fast, he was rumored to dicate stories to a secratary, just so that he could get them out that much faster. Take it as a truth or an urban legend (I suspect the latter, honestly) but I find it interesting.

I haven't written too many new stories in far too long, but I still have a huge backlog of work and I find that at least I can get up the energy to edit those.



Sometimes I think I'm still getting the "crap" out of my system....

Ahhh, maybe, maybe not. Don't let it worry you though.

I don't know if anyone 'round here does the 52 stories a yearby way of one-story-a-week, but does anyone/has anyone turned out 52 stories in a year? What's your yearly output, I wonder?

My yearly output now is too close to zero. But back in the day it was probably between 20-40/year.