So You Want To Be A Writer? Don’t Try
A message for creatives by Charles Bukowski
Written on his grave in Green Hills Memorial Park: “Don’t try.” Leaving us confused about what it truly means to us as creatives. Bukowski is known for his raw, honest, and concise writing.
He’s also known for his rough ways of living. His love for alcohol, his disgust for the 9–5 jobs, and his relationships with women.
With this, he continued writing and writing and writing with little success. It took him decades before he could even get the recognition he deserves. It was only in his 50’s when his success catapulted.
So how can he leave this message “Don’t try,” to us, to you as a creative? When what made him successful was because of his perpetual and consistent trying?
Trying to be a writer shouldn’t be your main goal
If you’re going to try to do something, don’t even get started. If all you want to do in your entire creative journey is to try, then it would be clear that you’d only tire yourself up. Instead, do start. Stop trying to want to be a writer, and be a writer. It’s not about the moment when you think about writing and just writing itself. It’s the mere act of doing the writing. Only when you start doing it is when you’ll find your power. Your ability to write, your ability to create.
“We work too hard. We try too hard. Don’t try. Don’t work. It’s there. It’s been looking right at us, aching to kick out of the closed womb. There’s been too much direction. It’s all free, we needn’t be told.”
— –from his letter to William Packard, 1990
Being yourself when creating art
When creating, it’s easy for one to do something that they think would gain them the attention. It’s easy to copy how someone writes just because it works for them and thinks it would do the same to you. By this, we sacrifice something — our ability to be ourselves when creating art.
People try to be someone else in their craft. And instead of doing that, make writing, make your art, the opportunity to know yourself more, to be yourself more. You will only then realize that having the ability to put yourself into your craft, to your work, will make you a better and more genuine writer.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.— so you want to be a writer, Charles Bukowsi
If you’re going to try, go all the way
If sacrifices for your art do not feel worth it. If the only reason you’re trying to be a writer is for fame, money, and the desire to be called a writer. Then maybe this is when Bukowski is going to say don’t try.
But if it’s something within you, if the thought of not being able to pour something within your craft hurts more, if the idea of not doing something to improve yourself within your art feels wrong, then maybe at this point when Bukowski will say: If you’re going to try, go all the way.
