Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
#2Try replacing "writer" with "startup founder".
Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
#3[deleted]
Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
#4That is an excellent poem, and I remember reading it before I was familiar with his work.
Now that I have actually read several of his books, I see how he was sort of a disaster as a human being:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bukowski
I sort of have to agree with Modest Mouse on this one. Lyrics from the song Bukowski:
"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?"
Not trying to take away from the poem, just trying to make the point that Bukowski was way more interested in writing things that make him seem like a "badass misunderstood writer who Keeps It Real unlike all of these other phonies who claim to be writers" than anything else.
Sound like any company founder you know?
Yet another datapoint that being someone who makes great art, and being someone you would want to be roommates with/married to, are not exactly related.
See Also: Hunter S. Thompson.
Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
#5Interesting, however, it reminds me of an interview I saw of outsider independent filmmaker Errol Morris on 60 minutes[1]. When asked if he wishes he could win an Oscar for his work, he never has, Morris quickly replied 'of course', and went on to explain that wanting recognition is part of being an artist.
Some outsiders rationalize their outsider status as being a choice, when they have none. I don't claim to have a window into Bukowski's head, but as Morris would say, sometimes those around us see us more clearly than we see ourselves.
Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
#6tongue-in-cheek
Fuck him. Who is he to tell other people not to write? He's just a writer.
If you want to be a writer, do it.
Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
#7A poem of his that I think better conveys the idea is "air and light and time and space" (http://www.organicmechanic.org/2005/04/three-by-bukowski/)
"baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for."
Now, people who have never tried their hands at writing (or any other tough creation process) should know that this is now always true. There are writers who just sit and go in one sitting (I had read that Gabriel García Márquez wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude nonstop, holed up in his study), but this is rather rare. Most writers go through countless revisions, reversal, etc.
However, the grand feeling of "this is the thing I have to do in life", of course, has to be there.
Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
#8Writing 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.
Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
#9Many great writers had to labor over their writing.
Re: Charles Bukowski: So you want to be a writer?
#10tongue-in-cheek Fuck him. Who is he to tell other people not to write? He's just a writer. If you want to be a writer, do it.
The point is that, if hearing someone tell you that you shouldn't write is enough to make you stop—then you probably shouldn't write. Your words will be meek, and half-offered, standing in the doorway waiting to be invited in. If you, as a writer, are the one thinking "Fuck him!"—then you have a voice.