I think this poem is accurate

Shit! I thought I hated poetry.

Bukowski "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.

Are you trying to write to get girls? Are you copying other people? Are you ENTIRELY SELF-INVOLVED ? Guess what! You don't have a chaaaance.

(*I actually disagree with that last one because most all writers/musicians/artists are narcissistic egomaniacs. To some degree, you have to be.)

Anyway, Bukowski, way to go, you're probably right. I probably should take his word for it and quit now because lately I've fallen into the "forced" category. Furthermore, I don't write that much and I'm not that good at it.

Oh it's also hard/impossible to write what other people want to read. I think that very few writers have any sense of this or maybe they just don't care.

I should have gone to music school.

I should have gone to music school.

Too many possibilities. The internet offers too many POSSIBILITIES.

this

esss my life.



thanks.