Charles Bukowski: So You Want to Be a Writer?

This Bukowski poem contains the best, truest advice on writing I've ever seen.

So you want to be a writer?

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.

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