A Ray Bradbury Story

In my college days I was fortunate enough to meet Ray Bradbury when he came to lecture at a neighboring university. I sat through his lecture, totally mesmerized. Such a charismatic man. I'd loved all his books for years, starting with Dandelion Wine, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes. His Fahrenheit 451 still holds a place of honor on my bookshelf (along with Ayn Rand's Anthem).
 
Anyway, at the end of the lecture I stood in line to have a chance to talk with Ray Bradbury. How could I pass up that opportunity? When it was my turn he took my hand and held it between both of his and looked deeply into my eyes. He said, "I can tell you're going to be a good writer." His words sent chills through my body. How did he know I wanted to be a writer? I did so hope he was right.

Through the years I've thought I let him down. I never became much of a writer. Sure, I did tech writing, but that's not the same. In college I started writing my first novel. It was a suspense thriller. When I'd completed the first five chapters I let one of my professors read it, which was a serious mistake. He gave it back to me and said it was terrible. I took the five chapters, along with all my notes and all the short stories I'd written to date, and burned them. I figured I wasn't good enough to be an author.

Much to my surprise, my professor stopped me in the quad a couple weeks later and said, "I've been thinking about your novel. Your subject matter is not what I'd normally read, but I like your style and I think you have a knack for dialogue. You need to keep writing." I thanked him and went on my way. I never told him that I'd burned everything. I never did attempt to reconstruct that novel or those short stories.

I've learned a lot of lessons through the years. One is to keep writing even if some people don't like what you write. Remember, first and foremost, you're writing for yourself. Secondly, you're writing for a handful of fans. I've never stopped writing through the years. In fact, I've completed two novels, Firefall (a futuristic thriller co-written with my husband) and Outback Lover (a romance set in Australia). With the former we collected a zillion rejection letters. The latter I never attempted to market. All told, I've only had one poem and several magazine articles published (all under a different name). I have boxes of short stories,  and partials of novels and a fair amount of poetry, all stacked in a closet.

I don't think Ray Bradbury had blogging in mind when he told me I'd be a good writer. On the other hand, since he wrote science fiction, I guess he'd think the concept of blogging is pretty cool.