It was only a few weeks ago, but now I cannot even remember how I came across this poem by a man named Charles Bukowski. I only know that it had me at the first line.

“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-

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.

If you have ever wanted to know what the process of raw and real writing looks like, this is it. When the time is right, we’re just overcome with a need to write. We may not even know what words will flow, but as soon as there is a keyboard beneath our fingers or a pen in our hand, they start coming. I never used to experience this burning need to write, but that is just one of the many changes that have occurred from the end of my sophomore year to now—the end of my junior year.

It was shortly before the start of my junior year that I started blogging, blogging my way through recovery and the changes that it was bringing to my life. Since then, I have gained a small, but steady audience, and I appreciate each and every one of you who have joined me along the way. This past year, God has taken me places that I never could have imagined. My head spins just thinking about everything that has happened.

I left my beloved early college high school, and am discovering an equally wonderful place amongst homeschoolers. I have reached a point of solid, stable recovery—something I’m still trying to determine the right term for. And through it all, I have fallen totally in love with the very form of communication and expression that I spent the first fifteen years or so of my life despising.

I think that only now, after trying my hand at blogging to discover that I enjoy it immensely, can I truly appreciate Charles Bukowski’s poem. Before now, it was not alive in me; I was not a writer. I am now though, and I can’t imagine taking life any other way. For me, writing has become my means of interpreting. It has become a looking-glass for me; through words, I can see the world more clearly.

My world is changing though as I get further into recovery, and I feel that the contents of my blog will shift some with it. I still have plenty to say on the topic of recovery and eating disorders and self-harm and perfectionism, but I’m unsure of what the words will come together to look like. I mentioned in my post written off of Hillsong United’s Oceans that the unknowns about what recovered life looks like really freaks me out, and I think that the uncertainty of what my blog will come to be is one of those scary unknowns. I mean, what if people don’t like what I have to say anymore? What then?

I’ve been trying to figure out what direction I want my blog to head in, but I really have not the slightest clue. I hope you all don’t mind if we just figure it out together as we go along because right now, I don’t know much about what my future holds. I have not taken the leap of faith yet, but unintentionally, this post seems to have brought me one step closer.

Lord, you work in mysterious and marvelous ways.

The only things I am sure of are my identity as a writer, and my identity as a Child of God. The rest, I think I will figure out as I go along.

Until next time, folks.