sometimes i get away from writing. writing about things i love, impressions i have or just simply reasoning something out. lately, i’ve felt motivated again to draw things out again through writing. i think in life i go through seasons of how i express things. at the moment, it has been a time of practicing to draw things out verbally (hello getting married!). it’s been so good to continually become excellent at communicating with james (and obviously others), but it truly takes practice! but like i said, i feel like writing again.the best advice as an english major i ever received from a professor (or anyone in fact) was so simple, it’s stupid. she said, sit down..and write. don’t outline it. don’t think too hard. write! put your fingers to the keyboard, pen to your pad and write away. at first, i felt so silly just writing away, scribbling away my sometimes disconnected ideas and passions. but over time, i realized that it was the only way for me to begin. everything else came out too calculated.
when i came across this poem, i felt a similar encouragement.
…
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.
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