Weekly Prompt: Too Hot to Handle

Our line this week comes from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. He’s one of my favorite writers for his actual fiction and his writing advice, which removes any shred of mystery or muse-reliant magic.

But first, a little bit of trivia about this week’s author. As a talented youth, Bradbury snagged his first writing gig at 14, writing for the George Burns and Gracie Allen’s radio show.

Then his short story “Homecoming” was plucked from the slush pile by none other than Truman Capote and went on to be one of the best short stories of 1947.

Besides being talented, multi-award-winning, and prolific, he was also a bit of an odd fellow, claiming he could remember his own birth. He was a descendant of Mary Bradbury, who was tried for witchcraft at the Salem Witch Trials.

He only ever asked out one girl, at the age of 22, he took a bookstore clerk Maggie out for coffee after she accused him of shoplifting. Ray and Maggie were married for 56 years before she died in 2003. Maggie held down a full-time job, in the 1940s no less, so that Bradbury could stay home and write.

His office phone was a gas station phone booth. He couldn’t afford his own, so he gave the gas station’s number to his publishers and editors. Located across the street, he could hear it from his window and ran to when it rang.

He harbored a lifelong dislike for cars and never got his driver’s license. At 16, Bradbury witnessed a horrific car accident claim the lives of six people. He used public transport and his bicycle for the rest of his life.

He also wrote Fahrenheit 451 in just over nine days in a UCLA basement on a rented typewriter. As I’m sure you know, the title comes from the temperature at which paper burns (without being exposed to flame).

He was never actually a student at UCLA. Growing up in the Great Depression, his family didn’t have the money for college, so he went to the university library three nights a week for ten years instead.

Bradbury originally wanted to be buried on Mars by way of stuffing his ashes into a Campbell Soup can; he got his wish in a way when NASA named the Mars Curiosity touchdown spot “Bradbury’s Landing.”

And now for the man’s own words.

Ray Bradbury’s Wisdom on:

Overthinking

I’ve had a sign over my typewriter for over 25 years now, which reads “Don’t think!” You must never think at the typewriter — you must feel.

Hard Work

I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true — hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.

Developing Quality

My favorite quote inspired the purpose of Microcosm, to help writers practice in public at least weekly:

The best hygiene for beginning writers or intermediate writers is to write a hell of a lot of short stories. If you can write one short story a week — it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start, but at least you’re practicing, and at the end of the year you have 52 short stories, and I defy you to write 52 bad ones. Can’t be done. — from “Telling the Truth,” the keynote address of The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, 2001

Now back to our prompt and your chance to strengthen your writing muscles this week. The line you must use, abuse, and make your own this week is:

“It was a pleasure to burn.”

As we roll into Week 3, you have 100 words for your tale. Please have them in by next Friday before the next prompt goes live. And remember, the first great story in gets top billing.

If you’re writing science fiction, try out this idea for quick world-building:

If you haven’t read it, here’s a pub supporting link to the ebook on Amazon: