When I first started to write, some 43 years ago, I was full of questions; how do you write, what do you write about, how do you arrange the writing, etc. I found more than enough answers and finally weeded through them all to come up with a satisfactory grasp of the practice of writing. I found that after I'd worked at it for a while and found a comfortable way to apply words to the page, people were soon asking me these very same questions. I tried to come up with creative and thoughtful answers, but it wasn't until I found Charles Bukowski that I found the answer to the biggest question of all; how do I become a writer?
It turns out that writers are more often born than made. They practice their craft, but there has to be something in their DNA that drives them to spend hours sitting, hunched over a keyboard, ignoring the world around them, while transferring the thoughts and images in their heads to the stark blank page before them. Bukowski wrote a response to this perennial question and I've come to rely on it to explain the insanity of writing to those who think they'd like to become writers. I include his poetic answer, in full, as follows:
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.
I think this sums up the process rather succinctly. It has become my point of reference for myself as well as those who have looked to me for an answer. Bukowski, no matter what you may think of him as a poet or a man, has shot right to the heart of what it takes to write. When I go through dry spells, when the muse has taken a vacation somewhere far away, I'll pull out this poem and read it yet again. Magically it seems to focus me, reminding me of what it is I truly love to do...write. I share it with you in hopes it can have the same sort of effect.
Your Faithful Reporter: RCat
03-13-08
