Categories
These Are Those Things

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.
Thanks to Dan McGuire and Poets.org
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16549
Categories
Truly Free Film

Why The 75 Problems Get My Attention

I wish it was as simple as aim high, be thoughtful,  be ambitious, take some risks, and make a good movie.

I have looked at these 75 problems (yesterday’s 38 + last year’s list) because I have spent the last 20 years making 60 films. Each of those films is a big choice for me and it is not a business choice (although survival enters the equation) or ever an easy choice; I make movies because I love the project, the work, and admire the director.

I think most people would classify the majority of my films as art films. 90% of them were also made with at least partial funding from private sources. I am really proud of them on an artistic level. I am also proud of how they’ve performed for their investors (generally). And every single director I worked with will say they made the movie they wanted, and that inspires me deeply.