So you want to be a writer?
poets.org
poets.org
However, in his another poem, Roll the Dice, he presents something entirely different outlook on the subject of trying. And this is a poem I really admire.
ROLL THE DICE
-------------
If you’re going to try, go all the way.
Otherwise, don’t even start.
If you’re going to try, go all the way.
This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe even your mind.
It could mean not eating for three or four days.
It could mean freezing on a park bench.
It could mean jail.
It could mean derision, mockery, isolation.
Isolation is the gift.
All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it.
And, you’ll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds.
And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
If you’re going to try, go all the way.
There is no other feeling like that.
You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire.
DO IT. DO IT. DO IT. All the way
You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.I found the following after searching for "don't try" which is also quite nice:
"Somebody asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks, you make a pet out of it." - Charles Bukowski
But truth is, he's not telling the whole story. First full throttle may make you blind. Second there are times you can't go all in on one shot (lack of resources, risk of death, or simply not knowing which path). You have to chunk your progress. Still doing these chunks with high intensity, care and reminiscence.
I believe his philosophy was to ignore those issues (lack of resources, risk of death), because if you start thinking about them, you'll never venture out, but instead spend your whole life preparing.
I think it was so because the regular life had very little to offer. I mean, I would probably try my luck on a pirate ship, if the alternative was back-breaking work and being hungry half of the time. But nowadays, why take risks, when there's a regular coding job is a sure path to tons of comfort and pleasure?
But none of that fits in a poem, so I get it.
Is it a different outlook? I think the "don't try" in the gravestone you mention refers to the same concept, or as Yoda put it "Do or Do not. Do not try".
"Don't try" to me reads not like "Don't do anything daring" (avoid trying stuff) but instead "Do things fully, don't just dip your toes in" (commit to stuff, don't do half-hearted tries).
Besides we do know that he did go all the way, he quit his main non-writing job (at a later age) and went all-in in writing.
> "No. Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try"
Master Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back.
> “I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be.”
And I think that's exactly what you and Bukowski are saying here.
Of course, the "don't try" line is an aphorism. Often enough, you won't know whether or not you'll like something until you've tried it. And sometimes, it might take a few tries and some warming up. That's only human. Often enough, though you already know deep down your gut "this isn't for me" while your mind hasn't caught up yet. Bukowski's poem might just be the bucket of icewater that some aspiring writers, stuck in a grueling grind over their keyboards, really need.
I couldn’t care less if I get an infinite amount of rejections. I am not setting for less. I’m too old for that shit and I have seen what it does. If it means I’ll end up alone constantly striking out until I die, then so be it.
I am ready to never experience any form of love and intimacy ever again, and because I am ready for that I feel fearless to go after what I want.
Needless to say, I am not that good looking. I am only living once and realizing it.
Oh, and I am also a feminist, I do everything with consent and apologize for any intrusions. You’d be surprised how polite I am (taking proper distance) despite being direct with my compliments on Tinder/everywhere else.
If you read my comment history, I was in relationships the whole time (single since recently).
Edit: I knew this would get downvotes. Yet, I wrote it anyway, to me this topic matters enough that I don't mind the downvotes. If anything, the downvotes are in spirit of the poem and how I approach this. I'm willing to get hurt a lot more in this area. I'm willing to risk it all. Are you? For the past 10 years, I know I wouldn't.
I know I think differently than some about this. I also know that whenever I get into a conversation with most of you, it seems we're more similar than you'd think. I've had enough of them, a lot of unchecked assumptions are hashed out and it seems in most cases we tend to agree (at least based on the dozens of conversations I've had with people).
To all the downvoters, I'd suggest two things: (1) suggest a better alternative, (2) I'm open to hearing why you think my approach is not a net positive to the world. I think it is: I'm allowing others to meet me as a person. I don't see what's wrong with that. You downvoted, so clearly you think it's a net negative. I'm open to a good faith based discussion on it.
I'm always open to learning.
Bukowskis poem seem to represent the romantic idea that art is divinely inspired and the artist is just a vessel. Maybe it really felt like that for Bokowski, while for others writing is just hard work.
It is funny that Adams who have such a playful style of prose found writing torture, while the much more self-important and edgy Bukowski find it easy. (Assuming the poem represent his own experience.)
I mean that in the same sense a movie like Airplane! is just about stringing jokes together, and has no deeper plot or "cinematic" qualities (compared to a comedy like Shaun of the Dead or Young Frankenstein).
Although I do think it's a bit harsh to call his writing contrived or stiff, I did get a sort-of similar vibe of "individual moments stringed along" when I first read his books.
I do disagree when it comes to overall themes. Granted, he was not the masterful storyteller along the lines of Terry Pratchett, but I do think he nailed some of the general sci-fi satire points.
I like Adams, Pratchett and Gaiman separately (see comments by others for context). Perhaps my fondness for Adams is that I discovered him first.
I think Gaiman is the best of the three in that aspect.
Pratchett is somewhere between Adamd and Gaiman in that respect imho. Though I could never like any of his work...
I certainly believe that is true.
When I do my best work (programming, not poetry) I feel like I was inspired. I always get inspired in the same way, by doing the hard work for as long as it takes, and that usually feels like torture.
Perhaps Adams and Bukowski use a simmilar method to each other, but is just presented differently.
> Charles Bukowski:
> 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 it's hard work just thinking about doing it
I read this as "if you don't want to do it, then don't", not as "If it is hard work then don't do it". Thinking about doing it, and doing it are different things.
I really don't believe that any world class writer (or world class anything) got inspired before doing the hard work first. That is a romantic idea, not the inspiration itself.
Then recently I sharpened my knife for 2 hours straight, and somehow managed to write something that seemed to be relatively divinely inspired (compared to my usual crap).
There might be a pattern where some kind of physical/mental exhaustion would induce the people into a trance like state under which inspired worked could be “channeled” through.
I use these mystical terms somewhat loosely, but I would say that after an actual channeling experience (not very successful but one nonetheless) the act of writing feels weirdly similar to the point that I suspect they could share some similar processes underneath.
The flip side is a hypersensitivity I've experienced from other periods of artistic zen (photography, music). Everything, good and bad, gets cranked up to 11 and the pendulum breaks off its carrier eventually. And so it did.
As an author of many years and thousands of pages, I can relate to this. There is an oft misattributed quote on the matter, "I hate to write, but I love having written." In my case "hate" is too strong a verb, I merely find it exhausting. And yet somehow I wish I had more time to do it.
I'm reminded of the outcome of the two groups of potters in a pottery class, one group challenged to make a perfect piece and the other to make as many pieces as possible:
https://excellentjourney.net/2015/03/04/art-fear-the-ceramic...
Also, handy tip for those who want to write: get a 3x5” or smaller spiral notebook and a pen with a clip that can fit in the spiral. Put it in your pocket and take it everywhere. See something funny or unique standing in line? Scribble it down.
Eventually you’ll get better and better at picking your words on the spot, of translating from your head to the page and then to a reader. It’s harmless practice and sometimes you can surprise yourself. Writers write.
Then people accuse us of being lazy because when we’re working the hardest the most anybody sees is somebody glaring at a screen or piece of paper in a typewriter.
Woke up this morning, and it seemed to me
That every night turns out to be
A little bit more like Bukowski
And yeah, I know he's a pretty good read
But God, who'd wanna be
God, who'd wanna be such an asshole
God, who'd wanna be
God, who'd wanna be such an asshole
- Modest Mousehttps://mjpbooks.com/blog/the-senseless-tragic-rape-of-charl...
from the article: In the posthumous collections, Black Sparrow publisher John Martin has made changes to the majority of Bukowski’s poems. Damaging changes that run counter to just about everything Bukowski represented. Wholesale removal of references to drinking, drugs, sex and madness. Changes that completely alter the meaning of the manuscripts. Changes that don’t even begin to make sense. It feels like nothing short of gleeful, unrepentant vandalism and destruction.
> staring at your computer screen
> or hunched over your
> typewriter
> searching for words,
> don't do it.
I don't claim to BE a writer, but I think I had moments of good writing in my life, and I like writing a lot (I wrote two - largely unsuccessful, of course - novels, two technical books, and tons of other stuff), and I completely disagree with this. And for most of the rest of the poem.
Sloppy and unconsidered is the whole point. The same way a punk song (1977-era not Green Day era) is not meant to sound like a classical concerto.
My favorite poetry collection is "Burning in water, drowning in flame", but most of the poems are thematically and stylistically aligned.
He also wrote a ton of short stories, mostly dark and crass. They are all quite short, so literally take your pick with those.
I like the novels above the other stuff personally.
At least punk songs have some kind of emotional resonance, or at the very least a good hook, you know?
I guess what I'm saying is that every Bukowski poem I've read reads like one I wrote in seventh grade.
To quote art critic J. Lebowski, that is, like, your opinion, man.
Both laymen and a number of literature figures and literary critics have appraised Bukowski's work.
So there's that, it's not like it's some guilty pleasure or something only undiscerning crude fans appreciate...
>At least punk songs have some kind of emotional resonance, or at the very least a good hook, you know?
There's all kinds of emotional resonance in Bukowski's work. And I'm not great fan of him either, in fact don't even have a single book (while I have of tons of others poets of the era).
Just a random pick:
the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh
Then you either overestimate your sevent grade poems, or you wrote great poems in sevent grade and should have done something with them...
But, I think the more plausible idea, is that you have a different sensibility and find them beneath you, but more from a moral and/or formulaic judgement and a prejudice about how a proper poem should be...
To make an easy analogy, that could be the same way a "rawk" fan can't understand electronic music, and thinks it's all rubbish, even it's Aphex Twin and not Skrillex.
thanks for changing my mind :)
Doesn’t speak well for the work frankly.
Why can’t his poetry speak for itself? Why is it only good when we know the backstory?
The emperor has no clothes. His work is simplistic and the gravitas is fake.
Glad for you if you like his work - there is no accounting for taste. I know I’m in the minority, and learned scholars disagree. I’m not trying to convince anyone, just offering a differing viewpoint.
If you want to be a writer write. If you aren't writing irrespective of any external concern, you aren't a writerhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32771235
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.I've heard of many writers - fiction, non-fiction, poets, all types - who do rewrite things again and again. I don't see why that wouldn't make them a writer.
If anything, it seems the desire to improve a piece is a desirable trait.
Code is not bursting out of me like a ray of sunshine or whatever, but it pays the bills and that is fulfilling enough.
I /strongly/ disagree with this. If you cannot revise, and have no stomach for it, then don't do it.
First drafts are garbage; always.