So You want to be a Writer
By Charles Bukowski
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.
Thoughts from my mind just for you.
1/4/2022
Writing this one has been different. The first book I just sat down and started typing. My hands did all the work. I simply had to stay awake long enough to get it down. This one I’ve been slowly writing pieces to all year long, with the first official chapters written when we returned from Oceanside nearly nine months ago.
Such a different person I was. So far I’ve come in such a short amount of time. I don’t feel this book will ever be able to fully express everything we went through in the living of this one, but I also see so clearly that it doesn’t have to. Not every detail is meant to be remembered. Not every photo is meant to be shared. Not every thought should be spoken. Sometimes you’ve just gotta shut the fuck up and be a part of it, which is something I can say happened at nearly every stop along the way in this one.
What will be the end result of this? A celebration? A declaration? A reminder of what we lost? An aria of what we may never be, or have, or hold? I don’t suppose we will get that deep. But just like a night out at the club, we’ll start with a couple drinks, and maybe some weed, or a bump, or a pill, or whatever ends up happening, and before you know it, the music is good, and hitting you in waves, and you are alive.
So, you go outside to take a deep breathe and cool air fills your lungs, and they tingle a little bit, and you know there will never be a better reason to keep going. Love, and music and all that jazz. It needs you to keep going. And so do I. Please, keep going. I haven’t written about you yet. Have I? We still have more magic to make then, Is what that means. And I guess that’s what this book is really about. Magic. I’m writing about magic in this one.
11/22/2021
Hallucinate, desegregate
Mediate, alleviate
Try not to hate
Love your mate
Don’t suffocate on your own hate
Designate your love as fate
A one-world state as human freight
The number eight, a white-black state
A gentle trait, the broken crate
A heavy weight or just too late?
Like pretty Kate has sex ornate
Now devastate, appreciate
Depreciate, fabricate
Emulate, the truth dilate
Special date, the animal we ate
Guilt debate, the edge serrate
A better rate, the youth irate
Deliberate, fascinate
Deviate, reinstate
Liberate to moderate
Recreate or detonate
Annihiliate, atomic fate
Mediate, clear the state
Activate, now radiate
A perfect state, food on plate
Gravitate, the Earth’s own weight
Designate your love as fate
At ninety-eight we all rotate
Hallucinate, desegregate
Mediate, alleviate
Try not to hate, love your mate
Don’t suffocate on your own hate
Designate your love as fate
A one world state as human freight
The number eight, a white black state
A gentle trait, the broken crate
A heavy weight or just too late
Like pretty Kate has sex ornate
Now devastate, appreciate
Depreciate, fabricate
Emulate, the truth dilate
Special date, the animals we ate
Guilt debate, the edge serrate
A better rate, the youth irate
Deliberate, fascinate
Deviate, reinstate
Liberate, to liberate
– Michael Hutchence. Died 11/22/1997
It has occurred to me lately, perhaps more than when I was younger, that Che did not just become ‘Che’ one day. He didn’t just wake up to a transformation like in a movie or something. First he was just Ernesto. Just a boy. Naive to the world and still willing to face it all the same. He didn’t decide to change the world. He just did. Or did he?
I can go on and on trying to claim I know what he was thinking, and I will study him until the day I die trying to answer my own questions about him, but I know, when it’s said and done, it really doesn’t matter. All that matters is living a life worth writing about it. Even if it’s you that’s writing it. It’s your story anyways. Why put it in the hands of someone else? Why be so careless about the future?
As I read the words he wrote as a young man, the thoughts of a doctor instead of a revolutionary, I see so clearly that perhaps he did know what he was doing. Perhaps this was his plan in the first place. Che died when he was 39. I am 37. By my age he already helped win a revolution, and I will never be soldier. But I don’t have to be. I just have to me, on my own path, in my own way, writing my own story. And I must remember to enjoy the journey, and the people I’m meeting on that road. Money can be replaced. Jobs can be won and lost. But love, friendship and truth. Those are impossible to replace. Even Fidel knew that. Which is why he had Che.
“I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel, or perhaps it’s better to say that traveling is our destiny. . .”
– Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara
11/21/2021
8 years. That’s how long it’s been. We even did the days and it’s somewhere around 2,644 days. Give or take. So much has happened in that stretch. So many places we’ve gone. But none of them like that first time. None of them so new and unique and unknown. We didn’t know it was anything special while it was happening, though.
We just knew we needed a change. Something to live for. Something to share again. Something that was just ours. We were such different people then. The world was getting to us. It was driving us away from one another, and we were letting it. It’s embarrassing to admit we were failing at love, but I know we were. And then, just like that, we gave it another shot.
I understand it takes more than that. Honesty, commitment, loyalty, and of course that original chemistry that brought you together. Those matter. But it also takes a challenge. Something to prove you can do this together. Something to prove you have something worth hanging on to. That’s what that trip was. It was the one that showed us just how far we had really come. How far we still have to go.
I can’t promise this next weekend will be all that amazing. I know something will go wrong. It always does. It may not be all that great at all. The djs might suck. Hell, they might not even show up. I don’t think the point of this is to show greatness, but rather to show how long this road really was. And how after this, it’s time to start down a new one.
I suppose what happened is we forgot that we are better us just her and I. And that isn’t to say we aren’t glad we met the people we met. It’s just simply to say, we are our own crew. No matter where I go or who I meet, I know I have her and she has me, and that’s always going to be enough. From this point on I don’t think I’ll ever take that for granted again.
This year has taught me so much. Not just about her and I, but also about those around us. I wish to keep my distance now. I wish to follow my life’s own path. I wish to be something else. Something new. Something different. And that isn’t to say I won’t say hello, or give you a hug, or share a word or laugh. But rather to say, never again. And that’s okay.
That’s enough for her and I. Look at where we’ve already been. Look at where we’re destined to go next. But not with others. Not as a group. But only as her and I. And I like that. It’s feels right. It feels real. It feels like I’m home again. Maybe I always was, and I just could never admit to until now.
We’ve got one more this year. One more. And I’m happy to say it belongs to her and I. We’ve earned this one. Nobody will know what we went through to get to this moment, and I prefer that. I don’t want them pretending they had some place. They’ve got to find their own paths. Their own dreams. Their own beat. This one’s mine.
I want so bad to go out and dance with my friends here in New Mexico, to be a part of it again. And maybe I will some day. Just not today. Or tomorrow. Or even next year. I’ve got to let them grow and become whoever they’re gonna be and I’m just gonna keep on the road like I’ve been. If I showed up now I’d have too much baggage to let go the way I want to so bad. I know too much. I’ve seen too much. What a fool I am to remember it all.
Should I have been more careless and gotten so drunk and stoned that I would have been able to forget? Should I have let myself become the fool I’ve seen out on the dancefloor over and over again? Did I become him without realizing it? I’ve been pondering my failures more lately. Wondering where I went wrong. Where I did I lose? But did I?
This morning I woke up next to a beautiful woman. Who slept next to me not because of my name, or money, or even fame, but rather because she wanted to. And when we awoke we stayed in bed and laughed and loved and enjoyed each other one more time. And then our children awoke and filled our home with the noises of life. I have all the things a man could ever want, and still am I to say I am just a failure because my bank account is not flush? Or even because I could not dance the night away?
Next week we’re on the road again. Back to the sound we loved so much when we were young and before it all went wrong for me and this city. Maybe I’ll see you again. When I don’t resent you so. But until then I wish to say, enjoy it. Love it. Be there because it’s the only place you want to be in the world. The entire world is dancing to a beat that you are a part of, and when it stops, all I want for you is to know, it was worth it. Cause that’s how I feel right now.
The good, the bad, the in between. The friends I let go, the people I’m glad I never became friends with in the first place. All that other stuff in between. All of it. It was worth it. And so are you.
11/20/2021
Now that I am completely started on this second book, the sequel to our love and the beat, I find myself writing as much about people as I am about the events we are traveling for. It wasn’t my plan, but I also feel it is right. So many years as a space cowboy, it’s time to come in from the unknown and connect with other people, I thought. Although, I suppose they’d be out there in space too. If you really want to be honest about it.
What’s tough is I’m not saying the things I’m sure they’d want me to say. And that isn’t to say I’m saying anything bad, just simply that I’m writing what I saw and what I felt. No names, of course. This isn’t some attempt to get famous or to make others look bad. But again, I’ll tell the truth the way I saw it. The way I feel it to be right.
Whether it’s seeing a friend we haven’t seen in a year, and being happy for how he’s looking and smiling in a way he hadn’t from before. Or maybe with friends that I’m realizing we may not want to see for a while. Friends we’ve got to let go. That’s the tough one. Admitting you love them, but also admitting we need our space. We need to return to what we once were. Just her and I.
We started this year in pain, us both. We were hurting each other. The wounds from that one may never heal for her and I, but I suppose we’re both willing to try again together. But with starting over there comes an understanding that part of starting over means standing up for yourself, and not everybody is okay with that. Not everybody understands. And even if they say they understand, that doesn’t mean they’re going to act that way when it all comes down to it.
A friend of convenience and clout is no friend at all. A lot of lessons I was forced to learn this year. Whether I wanted to learn them or not. And what did i learn most? Maybe it was better out there in space. Maybe I should stay out there just a little bit longer.
11/19/2021
“We in this country, in this generation, are – by destiny rather than choice – the watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of “peace on earth, good will toward men.” That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength. For as was written long ago: “except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”
– Speech JFK was supposed to give the day he was assassinated
Edc 2021 will always hold a very special place in my heart. We showed up with so little. On our own. Without even a place to stay. And people were kind to us. They looked out for us, and they just didn’t have to. Sonya’s phone was even turned into the lost and found after she lost it. It wasn’t the people we expected, but that’s the point of this stuff. You see that other side of people and you cherish the ones who remember PLUR. I just want to say thank you, again. You gave me something worth telling the whole world about, and it has nothing to do with what Dj’s were playing. ❤️❤️❤️❤️
And Escape. Well, escape felt like a parting gift. We felt kindness and generosity too, but don’t we always from our California fam? From the minute we met you all, you’ve been honest and good to us. It’s meant the world, and Escape was a way of having one more chance to remember that. I keep wanting to make plans to return, but I also want to remember that weekend for a while more. The longer I stay away, the more I know it will mean to me.
Ourdancefloor.net 