you dont want it, you just ARE it

So You Want to Be A Writer

By Charles Bukowski
via http://enothingblog.blogspot.com/

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.

...

This amazingly describes the way I feel about writing. Even saying that I "feel" a certain way about writing isn't exactly accurate.

Never "Oh, I should write something right now" or "So I told myself I would write more. Gotta work on that one."

When I sit still long enough, it's just what happens. As I wrote up there under my name, next to my flowery blogger avatar - It'd be harder for me not to write.

I write everywhere, all the time. I always have.

On a bunny shaped post-it note asking my parents to grab my blanket
if there was another earthquake.

The back of a paycheck stub I pulled out from
between the seats in my car while driving because
I had to capture the killer opening to my Persuasion Speech
that I'd just thought of.

For Christmas gifts from the ~hardest year of my life~
Christmas.

A Twitter post when I'm on the bus and have an

inspired thought surrounding the fact that crazy people
are ok, as long as they're laughing.

A receipt I found in my wallet on the rare occasion
my therapist says something worth remembering.

A post-it note when a co-worker says

something worth noting.

On the paper table cloth at a Spanish cafe when I see a man
across from me, sitting alone watching the passerbys,
hurriedly drinking his espresso, acting brave.

I don't like writing, I am writing.

Thanks for reading, me.