so you want to be a writer?

Charles Bukowski

• 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.