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 patienly.

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.

Charles Bukowski