Today, in Ray’s memory, I want to post a mash-up of what Ray’s writing has meant to me. If it wasn’t for Ray Bradbury, I wouldn’t have become a reader and through his stories I learned so much––especially about writing. Thank you for your wonderful stories! I’ll miss you.
Here’s a post from Jan. 13, 2012:
I’m sure a lot of you were fabulous readers in high school. I wasn’t. I was FAR from a great reader. I am still a SUPER slow reader. And so, English was torture for me. I was always behind. Always trying to catch up. And so, I never truly enjoyed the stories that I had to read for class. It was a constant struggle. But, one day, the trumpets played and the sun came out and I was assigned to read The Martian Chronicles and I flew through its pages. It was the first book I got excited about. Really excited about. I saw everything so clearly in my mind. Thank you, Ray Bradbury. And, as fate would have it, I lived in the same town as Ray Bradbury. I tried many times to see him speak at our local library, but always found the event had sold out by the time I got there. So I’m very grateful I get to thank him here in the ether. If it wasn’t for The Martian Chronicles, I’m not sure I would have turned into a reader, however late it truly did happen.
This is a post from Nov. 3, 2011:
I have to admit, it was fun reading over some of the things I somehow saved all these years. The truth is I wasn’t a big writer in high school. I wasn’t even a big reader. I kept diaries but always stopped after a few pages because I always wrote the same thing, day after day. What really surprised me in reading over the few writings I have from high school is the fact that I wrote a little Sci-Fi. I guess it should be no surprise because it was the same year that Ray Bradbury rocked my world with The Martian Chronicles. And, since I’m working on the edits of a Sci-Fi novel I’m releasing early next year, it is extra fun to find this little story. This was written way back in 1978 when I was 15. What was big in 1978? A little movie called Star Wars. Yes, there is a rebel base in my story:) What’s really funny is that I had to asterisk the sentences that I knew were fragments. Is there a bigger sin than a fragment in high school English? Note, I’ve peppered the essay with exclamation marks and also wrote in the second person which is another no-no. I was such a rebel:)
Here’s a scifi short story I wrote in high school:
Dreams Come True by Laura
“Hurry kids, you’ll be late for the interplanetary shuttle!”
Those kids! They’ll miss the shuttle and then they’ll have to go on the air tube missle run to Alpha! And you know that “those” people ride it!
“‘What’ you say? You don’t know what “those” people are? I bet you’re an Equarian, huh? We must have gotten caught on the same air wave in the Atmospheric Continuum.
“Where do I live?”
I live on the Lunic Trimodule planet of Dorian. Named after the woman who founded it. It has all the required life-support equipment….
There’s much more, but I’ll spare you! I’ll skip to the end:
Who am I? I am 4972 of the Moon Base Luna. I have black hair and come complete with the full compliment of computer packs. While on the Moon Base, we could make any changes in our physical and mental being as we required to fulfill our job sufficiently at our stations. Since my station is Dorian mostly made up of water, I made the change from feet to flippers, and I have a built -in carbon dioxide module that lets me stay underwater longer….
you get the idea. And here is how it ends:
“Harry, Harry! Get up, you’ll miss the bus.”
“Mom, I just had the wildest dream…”
Or, was it?
Yes, the male POV surprised me only because my new story TRANSFER STUDENT is written in alternating POVS between Ashley and Rhoe, a boy-geek alien from the planet Retha. Maybe Harry has been sitting in my head for a while and is really Rhoe in disguise?