It's not often I get upset about a celebrity dying. After all, I'm
very self-centered and their disappearance from the world will not affect my
life whatsoever, especially retired celebrities. I know a lot of people got
really upset when Heath Ledger died. When I saw The Dark Knight, I was like,
dangit, he could've done so much more, that sucks. But I wouldn't say I was
legitimately sad. When Patrick Swayze died, I had a friend who cried (*cough
cough* Stephen *cough cough*). When Michael Jackson died, everyone got up
in a tizzy about it, and yes, I love his music, but whether he is alive or dead
doesn't affect me, because he's not producing anything new anyway. Whatever,
I'm a jerk.
As you may or may
not know, yesterday Ray Bradbury died. Or at least I found out about it
yesterday. A quick google search could confirm when it actually happened, but
that's irrelevant. Even though he was, in fact, a retired celebrity, I got a
little sad.
For nearly a
decade of my life Ray Bradbury was without a doubt my favorite author. Really
he probably still is, but a lot of times I forget about him because OMG HARRY
POTTER JK ROWLING OMG! However, while Harry Potter was an instant classic, I've
been reading them since the 90s, and I've read each book at least a dozen times
(with the exception of book 7 which I've only read thrice), it just hasn't
affected me like anything by Ray Bradbury.
When I was in
Junior High I had a teacher assign the book Something Wicked This Way Comes
(Thanks, Mr. Caldwell). This book was my first Bradbury. I'm fairly certain we
read the book around Halloween (because, really when else would you read it).
And I've read it just about every Halloween since. As I've grown older, which
character I identify with the most changes, but every year, I identify with one
character or another very strongly. I think that in and of itself is a
testament to his writing. Every single time I've read the Harry Potter series
I've only ever identified with the Weasley twins and Hermione, and those are
only to a certain degree, never as strongly as Jim, Will, Will's dad, or the
various carnival workers/ townspeople.
My second Bradbury
book was Farenheit 451, which I also read at Mr. Caldwell's suggestion. This
book spoke to me very deeply as the vehement book nerd I was. It's probably a
lot of the reason why I continue to talk myself out of that iPad or Kindle Fire
I've been lusting after. There's just a certain thing about books: the feel of
them, the smell of them, the look of them. It's a love affair I've been having
since I was very very young, and will win out with me through this age of
technology.
After I read those
two books, I was hooked. I was a Bradbury fan for life. I mean, look at my myspace page (which I haven't touched for probably
four or five years), the very first person under "People I'd Like To
Meet": Ray Bradbury. Being the nerd I was, I started finding more out
about him. Not just what books he wrote but about him: where he lived, how he
was educated, his writing process. Keep in mind this was in the late nineties
and the internet had not yet come knocking at my door. I had to find magazines
with articles, and do crazy things like read Forewords. It was taxing. Of all
the things I learned, the majority had come from the same teacher who had got
me hooked in the first place.
Learning about him
and how he came to his success was one of the first moments I thought I could
make it as an author. For as long as I can remember writing professionally has
been a dream of mine, but I never actually thought that I could pursue it,
until I learned more about Bradbury. He was from a small town in Illinois, he
mostly succeeded just because he worked really hard at it, and he truly loved
what he did. Although these aren't all true, this was my view of him as a young
impressionable Junior High girl. It was that view that inspired me. And if just
learning about him could inspire so much, what would meeting him be like? I
could only wander.
I continued my Bradbury obsession through High School, reading
every book by him Ms. Newingham (the English teacher) and the school library
had to offer. I read a lot of his works (the majority was, sadly, from Ms.
Newingham, and not our understocked library). And the love affair never ceased. It’s been cut down a bit in
recent years, having run out of new stuff of his available for me to read. But he’s always remained an active voice in
the back of my mind. Anytime I think of the hopefulness and the wildness of
summer, or the adventure sneaking around the routines of fall, I think of him.
Anytime I think of how I still dream and sometimes even believe I could have
one of my works published, I think of him.
I'm a little
devastated my dream of meeting him can never be. I always held on hope, and of
all the famous people I've ever wanted to meet, he was the most likely. He's an
author, so it's not like he has fangirls throwing their panties at him, so he's
probably not anti-fan. And HE LIVES IN ILLINOIS. The same place I have lived my
entire life. 5 hours or less away in any direction. There's got to be a book signing or something somewhere. Yet now it's too late. I'll
never meet him, but it's not the end of the world. I just need to take what
I've learned from him and how I've been inspired by him and use it in my
day-to-day life. Write more, and write for love, don’t be held back by your
roots, strive for greatness. Lessons I’ve learned, not by his writings,
necessarily, but from his life as well.
Something Ray
Bradbury was most well known for was the fact that he wrote every day. I think
(midyear) I may change one of my resolutions to that. Instead of finishing a
short story or script, I think my goal should be to write every day. Whether it
be a blog, a journal entry (Yes, the two are very different), a short story,
part of a longer tale, part of a script, all of a short, or anything else, I
should try and come up with some piece of writing at least once a day. I guess
here's mine for June 7, let's see what I can come up with for the 8th.
-Shannon
