so you want to be a writer?
Charles Bukowski, 1920 - 1994
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it. if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else. if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready. don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it. when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you. there is no other way. and there never was.From sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way by Charles Bukowski.
shit. That being said it's hilarious how pretentious this is when he says not to write out of pretentiousness. It falls under the same category of writing as those "Don't Date a Girl Who Travels" bullshit articles. I don't know who Charles Bukowski is, but I don't see why he feels the need to do the same thing brogrammers do on a daily basis. if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter
don’t do it. searching for words
Charles Bukowski is the last poet I'd call pretentious. He's like a meaner, drunker, poorer Hemingway. His biographical character raped a retarded woman on his mail route in his first book. He kicked the shit out of his girlfriend wearing shorts and white loafers during an interview. He came from a generation where men had to be tough as nails badasses and he slept on benches, drank til he had a bleeding ulcer and his hobby was going to the horse track but he wrote tender poems about the death of his first girlfriend, "A pot bellied whore." I love him. He's unflinchingly honest and complex.
And self-fucking-love -- yes, we shouldn't be "consumed" by it -- but we do love our words, especially when they make us laugh out loud. You don't have to take his opinion about anything. He was a suicidal sot. I guess you missed this last week. Glad to hear you are up [edit] and about again, spinal tap notwithstanding. I was so scared when I had to get a spinal tap... if the doctor taps a millimeter away from the mark. . .
Pretentiousness is probably a matter of interpretation: one of the recently mentioned on hubski cognitive biases. "don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love."
I don't entirely agree with his sentiments, but I find them compelling. I almost want to write a response poem beginning: It doesn't come bursting out of me... it seeps slowly to the surface when I'm wandering, walking
and yes, it comes unasked But I want to be a writer. I don't sit for hours, searching for words, but I do search and struggle for the right words or the best words. And I want to be a writer