Ray Bradbury Talks Inspiration and Advice in a Fascinating 1963 Film
“If I hadn’t discovered writing, I think I really would have become a magician,” the iconic author explains in Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer, a 25-minute documentary about his life and work.
This is excellent.
Aaron Sorkin on His New HBO Show, The Newsroom, and His Style of “Musical Dialogue” | Vanity Fair
The trick with Aaron, which I think makes this the ultimate challenge is that you have to learn a Broadway play every week. We’re not walking around the corner holding a gun, going, ‘Look out!’ We’re coming around the corner and doing Sorkin, and that’s a whole other thing. And it’s Sorkin at 90 miles an hour, because there’s a musicality, there’s a rhythm to him. Dialogue that has to come out of your mouth, snap-snap—and not just actors talking fast. These [characters] are very smart people, they think fast and they talk fast, and those listening have to keep up.
—Jeff Daniels on Aaron Sorkin. (Also check out Sorkin On Set.)
“Most of my comrades arrived in similar states of disrepair. We did our best to conceal the worst of it, to play the part of eager newbies grateful for the opportunity to hone what we referred to majestically as “our craft.” But the crazy inevitably surfaced, under the aegis of booze or pot or some brisker narcotic. After parties, we stumbled into the night howling songs of loneliness and sorrow. At least I did.”
– Steve Almond, “Why Talk Therapy is on the Wane and Writing Workshops are on the Rise” (via millionsmillions)
15 Books That Should Be on Every Grammar Geek’s Bookshelf:
People writing “your” when they mean “you’re” makes you cringe. The song “The Way I Are” makes your hair stand on end. You can’t read user comments on websites anymore because you can feel brain cells dying off just trying to make sense of them. You, dear friend, are a grammar geek. As such, there are books that constitute required reading for those of your ilk. After you’re done editing this article, proceed to your nearest bookstore and purchase these must-have titles for rolling in the depths of grammar.
“It’s like making a movie: All sorts of accidental things will happen after you’ve set up the cameras. So you get lucky. Something will happen at the edge of the set and perhaps you start to go with that; you get some footage of that. You come into it accidentally. You set the story in motion, and as you’re watching this thing begins, all these opportunities will show up.”
– Kurt Vonnegut in Advice to Writers, one of 9 essential books on writing well. (via curiositycounts)
Woody Allen’s typewriter, scissors, and staplers
Woody Allen bought his Olympia portable SM-3 typewriter when he was 16, and he’s used it to type every single thing he’s written since then. “It cost me $40. The guy told me it would be around long after my death.” When he needs to cut and paste, he cuts and staples.
Screenshots from the terrific American Masters documentary on PBS. (Thx, @mattthomas > Orange Crate Art > New Yorker)
via New York Times article “Our Boredom, Ourselves” by Jennifer Schuessler
“And yet boredom is woven into the very fabric of the literary enterprise. We read, and write, in large part to avoid it. At the same time, few experiences carry more risk of active boredom than picking up a book. Boring people can, paradoxically, prove interesting. As they prattle on, you step back mentally and start to catalog the irritating timbre of the offending voice, the reliance on cliché, the almost comic repetitiousness — in short, you begin constructing a story. But a boring book, especially a boring novel, is just boring. A library is an enormous repository of information, entertainment, the best that has been thought and said. It is also probably the densest concentration of potential boredom on earth.”
