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.

Charles Bukowski

Hello to everybody!
I decided to start my blog with this poem. As you can imagine, one of my greatest ambitions is to become a good writer but I know that it's very difficult. I like this poem because it always reminds me that the essential element to do it is the strong impulse that you cannot manage to control. When we spoke about ideal job, during prof. Taylor's first class, on emerged that I'm not the only one to have this passion so..hope you enjoy Bukowski's suggestion :)