so you want to be a writer?
\nby Charles Bukowski<\/p>\n
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
\nin spite of everything,
\ndon’t do it.
\nunless it comes unasked out of your
\nheart and your mind and your mouth
\nand your gut,
\ndon’t do it.
\nif you have to sit for hours
\nstaring at your computer screen
\nor hunched over your
\ntypewriter
\nsearching for words,
\ndon’t do it.
\nif you’re doing it for money or
\nfame,
\ndon’t do it.
\nif you’re doing it because you want
\nwomen in your bed,
\ndon’t do it.
\nif you have to sit there and
\nrewrite it again and again,
\ndon’t do it.
\nif it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
\ndon’t do it.
\nif you’re trying to write like somebody
\nelse,
\nforget about it.
\nif you have to wait for it to roar out of
\nyou,
\nthen wait patiently.
\nif it never does roar out of you,
\ndo something else.
\nif you first have to read it to your wife
\nor your girlfriend or your boyfriend
\nor your parents or to anybody at all,
\nyou’re not ready.
\ndon’t be like so many writers,
\ndon’t be like so many thousands of
\npeople who call themselves writers,
\ndon’t be dull and boring and
\npretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
\nlove.
\nthe libraries of the world have
\nyawned themselves to
\nsleep
\nover your kind.
\ndon’t add to that.
\ndon’t do it.
\nunless it comes out of
\nyour soul like a rocket,
\nunless being still would
\ndrive you to madness or
\nsuicide or murder,
\ndon’t do it.
\nunless the sun inside you is
\nburning your gut,
\ndon’t do it.
\nwhen it is truly time,
\nand if you have been chosen,
\nit will do it by
\nitself and it will keep on doing it
\nuntil you die or it dies in you.
\nthere is no other way.
\nand there never was.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1134],"tags":[93,767],"class_list":["post-3341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guidance","tag-advice","tag-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}