A Tale of Caution

Okay. So before we descend down any further into the whole business of writers and writing, here’s a poem for you. Yes, this poem is for you. Yes, you. It’s for the aspiring writer in you. It’s for the disillusioned young blood in you. Yes. It’s for the lost wanderer in you. If you ever wished yourself to be a writer for any of the million and one godforsaken reasons, if you ever described yourself as a ‘writer’ to anyone other than your reflection in the mirror (and a certain unassuming distant cousin during a who’s-better-verbal-tug-of-war)…then, please, open the windows of your mind, tune everything out and read this poem. I have a feeling that quite a few of you know this poem, have read it before. If you have, it’s always a joy to revisit it. If you have not, here’s your treat. So, here we go.

So You Want To Be A Writer

By Chareles 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.

~~~

So it’s time to get serious now. If you are feeling inspired, re-read it. Let it in and then come back here. Things can wait.

Now we can begin. Honestly, how many of you chuckled more than once while reading the poem by Charles Bukowski? I believe almost all of you, if not chuckled, must have grinned at least once, nodding to yourself reading the poem.

And why is that?

It’s simple: because you are aware of it. The process. The whole reason why you opened a notepad or a Word document ever for the first time. You did smile or let’s say, unconsciously stopped one while reading the poem, because you recognize it and identify with it as the poet lists down the reasons why one usually begins to write.

Let’s start with the poet himself. Was he famous? Yes. He was read and known widely and in fact he was one of the most well known American poets of the last century. So why would a famous poet write a poem about writing where he lists ‘fame’ as one of the non-reasons for anyone to start writing?

Let’s reflect upon it. Most of the times, ‘writing’ is born as a passion or takes shape as an adventure. It serves as the canvas for the ones who prefer the pen over the paintbrushes. How many times one writes for the sake of, for the love of writing? Honestly, you won’t find many raised hands in the room. Writing, more often than not, begins as something else. Then it changes forms, climbs up the ladders, gets more intimate with you until one day it becomes an extension of you. Until the moment of such prominence occurs, it could be just a fling for one. For anyone else, that’s a good enough reason to write. But not in the book of Bukowski.

Let’s talk about him. This man had a long, embittered battle of a life. It was a tough life, a life that can flatten any man worthy of his salt to rubble, to insignificance, to dust. His was a life of pain and survival. He survived it, lived it and wrote of it. He was published for the first time in his early 20s and then there was a prolonged phase in his life where there was not a single click of the typewriter. He took to writing much later, when ‘probably it burst out of him.’ So what did he do in the meanwhile?

Well, he lived. When he had enough within, he got a typewriter and there was no looking back then. The world was not the same afterwards.

So, did he become famous instantaneously? No. Did he work hard at his writing? Yes. Did he have any secrets to his success other than perseverance? Bukowski surely must not have thought about how many copies his book would sell or how much royalty he would get while submitting his manuscript to his publisher.

So, here’s the thing: if you plan to earn your millions by writing your bestselling novel, then don’t do it. Now, question: did Bukowski earn money from his art? Yes and No. He did poetry readings from all over the States and they used to be hugely successful affairs. So sure, he made some money out of it. His books sold well later on and he must have received some royalty out of it. But he was no millionaire flying first class. He was a flawed, troubled man with issues. Just like anyone else on the street. He wrote because it was his voice, his bridge with the rest of the world. His typewriter was his Molotov cocktail. It was his torpedo, his war-zone. It was his loudspeaker through which he announced himself to the world. Charles Bukowski loved writing. So he wrote.

Here’s a question: why do you write?

Here’s another: Have you ever, ever thought of writing a bestseller and raking in millions? If you have and it’s more than once you have had this thought, here’s something for you. Stephen King, one of the most widely read horror writers of the world in the last several decades, did not conjure up his bestselling paperbacks just one fine day, sitting in his house. He worked for it, toiled at it, spent himself wholly and in the process created a body of work that is a legacy. The money, the fame, the big cheques all came later on. Bukowski, King and a hundred others did not just sit in a room as cheques flew onto them. They had their struggles. They had their rejections.

Truth is: it’s not easy. It never is.

Now, let’s talk about India. In the last ten years, things have changed. A certain IIT-IIM hybrid revolutionized the literary market here and the rest, they say, is history. Before that it was all different and Raj Kamal Jha was the only big name which could be traced back to the IITs. Now this writer bent the rules and did things differently. He basically brought the game down and made it more, they say, accessible. True, some would agree and at the same time, he paved a way for others. And soon it became an obsession across engineering colleges across the nation. Every would-be engineer with a troubled relationship and inconsistent grade points decided to share his story, which was promptly grabbed by new publishing houses. Some of them worked and became successful. But after a while every paperback on the book shelves boldly announced itself as the ‘new national bestseller.’

This is where it all began. This soon became a trend and it somehow became a warped reality that changed mindsets everywhere. Just like DSLRs changed the history of photography, the new two hundred page paperback changed the shape of writing in India. The plots became repetitive; the cliches became regular and the writing, progressively worse. It’s a fact.

The question is: can writing be a full time profession? There is no straight answer here. As the writer of the blog, I will say the answer to that is ‘no.’ In India it’s quite complicated to pay bills just by adding to the word count of the word files in your laptop. Writing is so much akin to meditation. You give it time, you help it grow and in turn grow with it. You nurture it, fuel it and let it guide you. One needs to give it time and effort. It does not happen overnight. You work at it for hours and hours, polishing it, getting better at it. When you are ready, you will know it. This also means that there will be a lot of false alarms before that. Ignore them. And if you genuinely wish to grow as a writer, stop thinking about adding some magic six figure number to your funds. Yes, there are names like James Patterson and Danielle Steele and Rowling and a dozen others. Forget the numbers. Just concentrate on the art, the craft. Writing is about precision, when it comes to the process of communication. But it’s not about numbers, it’s not mathematics. So be at it, sharpen your edges and then do it some more.

Then what about bills?

Well, pay them. Get a day job. Compartmentalize and multi-task. Read. Write. Edit. Repeat. Money is a mean to an end, so don’t let some borrowed idealism get in the way and mess with your mind. You don’t write so well while starving. It’s just not possible because we are all wired the same way.

And lastly, if you really want to write for a living, then freelance. Become a content writer and generate content. It does not pay much, but something is better than nothing. But know that content writing in India is an ambiguous world where people fight and troll each other for writing original articles that pay 20–40 paisa for word. So you need to not get the desperation get you. Write articles, blog about traveling. Write reviews. Streamline your writing. Go big on research. Remember one thing: writing as a career is not easy. Even if you get a book deal, the royalty won’t amount to much in the end. Unless you are ready to spend a quarter million on promotions. Or you are a marketing wizard with the next big idea. Selling yourself as a brand, as a writer, is also an art.

The rule is simple: don’t believe everything you hear, read or eavesdrop.

Write. Just write. Then write some more.

There is no other way to it.

And remember, everything else will follow.

Tips for aspiring writers:

· If you are keen to dramatically improve your writing, join any writing community or website. Especially if you are serious about your poetry, then please visit [and join] http://www.pigpenpoetry.com. This is no promotion. It’s a small community and is run by a handful of people. If you join, you need to wear Kevlar plates at all times. It’s not for the faint hearted. But the intent is good and constructive criticism is good criticism.

· Read. Please read. Diversify your reading. Mix up your genres. That will do you a ton of good when it comes to cadence, form and narrative. If you are serious, read Pale Fire and Master and the Margarita at the same time. To start with. See if it works.

· Explore in fiction. Reading and researching ‘hypertext fiction’ can help you understand context, flow and narrative, as usual, to begin with. It’s an ocean out there. Only meant for the serious pursuers.