Bradbury Trio

A Life Experiment with Huge Impact

I like to experiment with writing routines. One of the mentors I am learning from is Ray Bradbury.

The ‘Bradbury Trio’ in Ray Bradbury’s own words:

“I’ll give you a programme to follow every night. Very simple programme. For the next thousand nights, before you go to bed every night, read one short story. That will take you ten minutes, fifteen minutes. Okay? Then read one poem a night from the vast history of poetry. Stay away from most modern poems. It’s crap. It’s not poetry. Now, if you want to kid yourself and write lines that look like poems, go ahead and do it, but you’ll go nowhere. But read the great poets. Go back and read Shakespeare, read Alexander Pope, read Robert Frost. But one poem a night, one short story a night, one essay a night, for the next 1,000 nights.”

There is a great explanation of this idea at Benjamin’s Blog. Benjamin has an inspiring video of Bradbury on this post as well you want to check out. I have watched it several times.

This year, I decided to follow this program. Several writers I know participate in this structure for a prescribed period. 1000 nights is over 2.7 years! Many I know follow it for a month.

When I began the system, I couldn’t decide on which essays to read first or what…