The Rogers News

Author: Chris

  • Bukowski on Writing

    so you want to be a writer?
    by 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.

  • OneWord: Ticket, Ill, Lightning, Root, Brick, Bulb, Answers, Discovery

    Ticket: The ticket to the show fell from my pocket and drifted down to the grate on the ground. It rested there for a moment – paused to give me hope – and then slipped through the opening.

    Ill: The dog became ill from eating off the dusty garage floor, which the home owner had neglected to sweep since she purchased the home nearly ten years ago.

    Lightning: The lightning shot down to the forged steel head of Jack’s three iron. The charge traveled through the shaft to his hands and then to his heart. And this all happened before he knew what hit him.

    Root: The root of my happiness can be found in the often overlooked wrinkles at the edges of her smile and the way her eyes look at me so intently when she knows I’m watching.

    Brick: There lay a brick, slightly out of place. Its edges softened from decades of sleepy-headed students shuffling their tennis shoes along the paths.

    Bulb: The bulb hung from its fraying cord. It emitted a butter-yellow light that dripped thick on the damp pale green walls.

    Answers: He didn’t have all the answers. But he had some, and he tried on the rest. That was the best he could do under any circumstances – try his best, that is. Success is in the preparation, not necessarily in the execution.

    Discovery: The discovery that she made early that morning in the daisy patch of her mother’s garden changed her life forever. There, buried in the dirt, lay something that . . .

  • Staring At The Sun

    The root of my happiness can be found in the wrinkles at the edges of her smile. I stare at her as if I’m staring at the sun – squinting for the details I’ve overlooked – the faded freckles of childhood – the adolescent scars – the collegiate wounds. These individualities are the roots to her past. And each one of them tells a story that she might not remember, but that I can imagine. Some day I’ll let her fill the gaps of my make believe memories with her stories of truth, but for now I’m in love with what I know.

    Written from 9:15 pm to 9:35 pm on Monday, August 1, 2011 at home in Traverse City, Michigan.

  • Married!

    Now introducing, Mr. and Mrs. Chris and Lindsey Rogers!

  • Working Hard

    “Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on. Paying attention to what is going on in the world. Seeing patterns. Seeing things as they are rather than how you want them to be. Being able to read what people want. Putting yourself in the right place where information is flowing freely and interesting new juxtapositions can be seen. But you can save yourself a lot of time by working on the right thing. Working hard, even, if that’s what you like to do.” From Caterina.net.

  • Agressive Lawyering

    “First of all, you have to listen to everything and understand everything. Then you can get aggressive.” Attorney Decof, 86, won grooves fight for Ping

  • Good Boy

    Bottle caps in the asphalt like buttons on the earth. Coke, Sprite, and Dr. Pepper lining the driveway all the way down to where the mail comes. To the mailbox. To the mailman. To the curb where the garbage sits on Friday mornings for an hour or two after dad’s gone to work and mom’s gone to work and I’ve gone to school. And then down the road a little boy plays. Kept home for no good reason except that there’s more time to play in this world because life’s too short and he’s got all day. I wish I was that boy, so free to do whatever. Whatever, I don’t care. I’m a teenager now. I’m too cool for school. I don’t care what you say. Mom. Dad. Sister. Family – that stuff’s for punks. I’ve got to prove myself to the world. And do my own thing. I’m going to dye my hair. (But I never did.) I’m going to dress some other way. (But I never did.) I stayed the same.