Charles Burowski's 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.

photo credit: try2write

Anne Rice' ADVICE TO A NEW WRITER

There are no rules in this profession. Do what is good for you. Read books and watch films that stimulate your writing. In your writing, go where the pain is; go where the pleasure is; go where the excitement is. Believe in your own original approach, voice, characters, story. Ignore critics. HAVE NERVE. BE STUBBORN.

(credits to Bones Joven for originally posting this on her Facebook's Notes)

Queen Size of Whatnots

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for." - Epicurus

The last time I let my creative juices flowing was when I was still in college. I was 19; back then, our dear, college professor, who was so hard to please asked us to write something about our thoughts in life. As soon as our class was dismissed, I was pretty excited to start, thinking it was going to be easy for me to write about it. When you're melancholic, not to mention a number of personal journals I've been keeping since I was 13, it's even better to write what life means to you.

So I went home motivated to write about the things I knew about life. After 4 hours of composing what's in my head, I finally decided to call it a day with a smile of fulfillment. When the day came for us to submit our homework, I had mixed emotions; excited because I thought I knew I did better and nervous because I was hoping my professor would like it. But when our professor handed back our works and called our names one by one the next day, I was let down. Our professor was mum, deadpan. It was very safe for me to presume and say at that time that again, nobody, not even one in our class make the grade.

Then came the unexpected yet one of my most fateful day. A few years later, our photography class had an out of town project. On the second night of our trip, our good ol' professor (he's our professor in most of our major subjects, by the way) and our class camped out. He then shared his two cents worth and started commending a few of my classmates whom he thought was noteworthy and had shown its potential. He kept up with describing the rest of the class' personality. When it was finally my turn on the hot seat, I was taken aback! So, my professor did notice all along. I can still recall every single bit of nice things he has said about me, particularly my passion for writing. Yes, I know that did not definitely make it to the headlines, but for me, his praises were enough for me to pursue what my life long dream is as soon as I finish college: to write.

And so came graduation; then started working a few weeks later, but it wasn't somewhere I can pursue my love for writing, not even close. For the past 8 years of my career, I haven't gotten a chance to put my writing skills into action until it died down. You see, it's easier to give up on your dream when you get caught on either of these things: when you're living a charmed life, OR when reality bites and you see the downsides to it.

"What is not started today is never finished tomorrow." -  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Just when I thought my love for writing has fizzled, I came across Reiann's blog. My it served as a realization. Everything she had written was right. You have to make a couple of mistakes to get things right.  "You never get anything perfect in the first draft." Sure, coming up with a hundred excuses from time to time is plausible; more often than not you'll have the writer's block, but keep this in mind: it took 10,000 tries before Thomas Edison finally gets his incandescent bulb working. So get your pen and your hands working. Write, write, write!