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Charles Bukowski - So You Want To Be A Writer
Work rating: High

	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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