Ray Bradbury, we miss you.

Ray Bradbury is without any doubt one of the best creative souls of the 20th century, and that is just to say the least; I´m probably discrediting how much he has done. He has taken us to the places no one else dared to imagine, as well as the scenes and situations nobody else dared to. Not only would he pull the string a little more, but he also pulled as hard as he could.

For those of you who don´t know who this amazing writer is, let me introduce him to you.

Ray Douglas Bradbury (1920-2012) was an american author. He wrote short stories, novels, essays, plays, and poems. He wrote fiction mostly (science and mystery fiction) as well as horror and fantasy. He was born in Waukegan, Illinois, U.S. and died in Los Angeles, California, U.S. He is widely recognized for his first novel "Fahrenheit 451" and his collections of short stories "The Martian Chronicles", "The Illustrated Man", and "I Sing the Body Electric".

If you ask anyone who knows a little about (Ray) Bradbury´s life, he/she will probably know that he was extremely passionate about reading and writing.

The man was probably the most passionate when it came to writers. He is still to this day one of my main motivators to write. His passion was so strong towards reading and writing that I´m sure that if you watch 10 min. of one of his speeches (that you can find on YouTube) you will end up loving the man and probably will also fall in love with literature (if you haven´t already).

He demonstrated love towards his work and towards everything he dared to do, and no one could deny that.
The man is a very big inspiration and a very big influence on different writers and cultures around the world from today.

Barack Obama said on Bradbury´s death "Ray Bradbury`s influence on our culture was transformative." (2012), and it is completely true. Authors Neil Gaiman and Stephen King have also talked about Bradbury´s influence not only in them, but in the world. "...Bradbury left the world a better place and left better places in it..." according to Neil Gaiman, and according to Stephen King on the day that Bradbury died "The sound I hear today is the thunder of a giant's footsteps fading away. But the novels and stories remain, in all their resonance and strange beauty."

There was this symposium at the University of California (UC) in 2001 where Bradbury was invited to regale different stories about his life and his love of writing. In this symposium he also offers a program to follow for the next thousand nights before you go to bed. I like to call this program "Bradbury´s law for creativity." (and you´ll see why in a minute), but first I have to claim that I am NOT the author of this program, in any case it is Ray Bradbury himself. I´m only calling it that way in his honor and therefore it is easier to remember.

I´m only paraphrasing, I´m will quote some important details here and there, but I won´t be always transcribing the exact words that he said. Now, with all of this in mind, the program goes something like this:

Every night for the next one thousand nights (1,000) you should read each of the following per night.

One poem.
One short story.
One essay.

Some recommendations from Bradbury on what to read are:
-To read poems from the vast history of poetry like Robert Frost, Alexander Pope, Shakespeare; NOT from the poets of today. He recommends strongly to "...stay away from modern day poems; it´s crap, it´s not poetry..."

-To read essays from various fields: philosophy, archeology, biology, etc.
"That means that every night, before you go to bed, you are stuffing your head with one short story, one essay, and one poem. At the end of a thousand nights you will be full of stuff, ideas, and metaphors; along with the conceptions of life and your own personal experiences."

I strongly recommend that you at least try it. It is not only a great experience, but also an amazing program to help you with developing your creativity.

If we count the total amount of variables, that means that you read one of each of the items on the list, at the end of a thousand nights you have three thousand (3,000) different variables in your head.

You don´t need to do the math to understand all of the amounts of possibilities and/or ideas that you can join and maybe get an idea for a novel, or a painting or even for a science project.

This program has helped me a lot to get different ideas that I will use in the future for the novels I´m working on, and in my experience it is not only great for imagination and/or creativity, it is also a great tool to shape your brain and to fall in love for literature or even to read the books and accomplish the goals that you proposed at the beginning of the year.

Ray Bradbury was a dedicated man, to say the least. Not only has he given us stories that will take us to an infinity of different universes and make us wonder of what we know and what we don´t know, but he has also given us the key to also create our own.

He was also a man that we will all miss not only because of his greatness, but also because of his passion and love towards everything he did.

I hope this has helped you in someway or another and remember:

"Stuff your eyes with wonder... live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories."
-Ray Bradbury