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Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?

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Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?

#11

Post by derefr »

mvp wrote: post #8

Writing is a practical necessity. Like every other skill it does improve with practice. So advising people who are not good at it to not do it is wrong.

You're talking about writing as communication (i.e. essaying); he's talking about writing as aesthetic expression (i.e. fiction and poetry writing.)

The difference between the two is the difference between talking and singing: everyone needs to learn to talk; not everyone should attempt to get in front of a microphone (however much they enjoy doing it in the shower.)

Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?

#13

Post by RyanMcGreal »

At the risk of disagreeing with the great Charles Bukowski, this is defeatist bullshit. I doubt there's a writer alive who has never had to struggle to put words on the page; who hasn't had to edit and revise and throw out and rewrite to produce something worth reading; who hasn't plodded through the writing process thinking "This is rubbish" only to go back and look over it and realize that it has added up to something good.

Writing is hard. There's no need to make it harder by instilling a false, romantic sense that writing which doesn't spring fully formed from the writer's forehead isn't worth putting onto the page.

Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?

#14

Post by _pius »

IIRC, if you read Women, you'll see a passage where Bukowski essentially clarifies this piece. He'd get so many wannabe writers asking him for advice that he'd tell them to just give it up. If they didn't, they were real writers. If they gave up just because some old prick told them to, well ...

Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?

#15

Post by hugh3 »

_pius wrote: post #14

IIRC, if you read Women , you'll see a passage where Bukowski essentially clarifies this piece. He'd get so many wannabe writers asking him for advice that he'd tell them to just give it up. If they didn't, they were real writers. If they gave up just because some old prick told them to, well ...

That's pretty much the same advice I give to anyone who asks me whether they should do a PhD. If you need to ask, the answer is no.

Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?

#16

Post by pigbucket »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #13

At the risk of disagreeing with the great Charles Bukowski, this is defeatist bullshit. I doubt there's a writer alive who has never had to struggle to put words on the page; who hasn't had to edit and revise and throw out and rewrite to produce something worth reading; who hasn't plodded through the writing process thinking "This is rubbish" only to go back and look over it and realize that it has added up to someth…

I agree with every word of this, despite Shakespeare's friend Ben Jonson saying: "I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand. Which they thought a malevolent speech."

Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?

#17

Post by hugh3 »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #13

At the risk of disagreeing with the great Charles Bukowski, this is defeatist bullshit. I doubt there's a writer alive who has never had to struggle to put words on the page; who hasn't had to edit and revise and throw out and rewrite to produce something worth reading; who hasn't plodded through the writing process thinking "This is rubbish" only to go back and look over it and realize that it has added up to someth…

A contrasting perspective from Douglas Adams: "Writing is easy. All you have to do is stare at a piece of blank paper until your forehead bleeds."

Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?

#18

Post by Dove »

Counterpoint: An author once said to Winston Churchill that he never wrote unless the mood came upon him, but he replied to him that he would never achieve anything if he did so. "Lock yourself in your study from nine to one and make yourself write" he said. "Prod yourself, kick yourself, because this is the only way."

(From elsewhere on the internet)

Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?

#19

Post by tmsh »

Seems like more of an active/passive thing.

Somebody at one of these places [...] 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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski (via dalton)

It's an old idea. Someone at TED mentioned the muses not too long ago. Same idea. I agree with him in that sense, but, generally speaking, that doesn't mean you can't be very active preparing. Often, that's how I approach development.

Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?

#20

Post by 10ren »

Maybe he's getting at the idea that you need to have inspiration - in other words, you first need to have something to say, rather than to speak in order to have something to say.

I love this writer's saying: inspiration strikes he who is at the typewriter, meaning that although you cannot force inspiration, you can create conditions for it. Maybe that's what he means when Bukowski says then wait patiently.

Although my inspirations tend to come in the shower or walking in the park on a crisp autumn morning or sitting in a cafe, I do need to prepare myself - by immersing myself in the material, then asking a question of silence, instead of presuming the answer. IANAM, but I love the approach of Poincaré: It is by logic we prove, it is by intuition that we invent. http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Poin...

He also says, in agreement with Bukowski: Logic, therefore, remains barren unless fertilised by intuition.

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