“Treat ideas like cats…” Ray Bradbury on where ideas come from

Where do ideas come from? Here’s what the late Ray Bradbury says about them in his book Zen in the Art of  Writing:

You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. If you  try to approach a cat and pick it up, hell, it won’t let you do it. You’ve got to say, “Well, hell with you.” And the cat says, “Wait a minute. He’s not behaving the way most humans do.” Then the cat follows you out of curiosity: “Well, what’s wrong with you that you don’t love me?”

Well, that’s what an idea is. See? You just say, “Well, hell, I don’t need depression. I don’t need worry. I don’t need to push.”  The ideas will follow me. When they’re off-guard, and ready to be born, I’ll turn around and grab them.

Ray Bradbury was a wonderful writer. He wrote more than 30 books, 500 short stories and poems and a lot more – he even wrote episodes for The Twilight Zone). Here is the YouTube clip A Conversation with Ray Bradbury. It’s well worth a listen 🙂