So you want to be a writer?

This poem reminds me of W. Ross Winterowd's words from The Culture and Politics of Literacy,
"[w]e have, in other words, forgotten that the best reason for writing is the pleasure which the writer derives from the act"(123). On the other hand, it undermines the belief that everybody can learn how to write unless they posses a special talent. I liked the poem a lot, but I am strongly disagree with its main statement. What do you think?


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.