Ray Bradbury & What Keeps You Going
…[T]hat keeps me going. I have work to do. Tomorrow morning I will get out of bed. I’ll write some more stories. I’ll write some more plays. I’ll write some more screenplays. That’s what keeps me going.
The Last Interview
ray bradbury
It’s a question I get asked a lot: what keeps you going? What keeps you writing, what keeps you working? The world seems to be falling apart around us. Wars, crime, violence, man’s inhumanity to man everywhere you look — and still I write. Still I work. What keeps me going? Why do I get up in the morning?
Bradbury’s answer is as elegant as it is simple. I agree with him 100%. I write, I work, and I continue to write and work because there is more to write and more work to do. The work is the reason, in and of itself. The fact of it. The fact that what I do can change lives. Can change my life. That a well-placed word can change a mind, can touch a heart. That there are more hearts and minds to touch and change.
The work is what keeps me going. And I will keep going and keep working and keep writing until I cannot anymore. Because the work will always be there. Waiting.
LESSON LEARNED: WRITING IS THE REASON FOR WRITING.