Charles Bukowski - So You Want to be a Writer? lyrics

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
It'self and it will keep on doing it
Until you die or it dies in you

There is no other way

And there never was