Fixing Crooked Perspectives, Hoping It'd Work

Feeling so uninspired lately that I may have gravely doubted myself at one of the things I love best. Hoping it's just a phase. Silently pleading that the universe would somehow shift in my favor. But yeah, while I'm at it I still gotta hustle...

And then I found something out of my innumerable spent hours on the internet. Somehow it calmed me down knowing that I don't have to pressure myself too much. I may have used it as an excuse for "slacking off" but whatever. I gotta believe in something at one point - and this one convinced me, punched me hard right through my guts.

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(men) 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.

...Cooking something up hoping I'd get it out of the oven soon. Peace.