One Day, In A Faraway Land, When I've Got Plenty Of Time...

I was doing a quick, Sunday morning whizz around my usual sites and came across Charles Bukowski's poem air and light and time and space, which I'd pretty much forgotten about. It was great to reread this piece and once more be inspired to continue the daily grind of finding an hour here and there to develop ideas, of getting the words down one at a time, of accumulating pages and finishing stories and polishing prose and submitting work and once-overing rejected stuff and sending it out again. Because that's what writing all boils down to really, over and over again.
 
Basically, Bukowski's poem is a response to the perennial if-only-I-had-more-time-I'd write-a-novel-or-if-I-had-a-beautiful-Tuscan-studio-I'd-paint-a-picture lament which most artists regularly run into, the insinuation from these tormented creative types often being that they themselves lead lives that are far too busy or cluttered or devoid of necessities for them to fit in the luxury of creative pursuits, so any artist who does manage to write a novel or paint a picture must either live a Nirvana of no responsibilities, be wonderfully rich, or be a mad recluse with no social life whatsoever.

But Bukowski's poem knocks the pretension out of artistic wannabes (some of his poems about fellow writers are also brutal) who spend their lives saying that one day, most definitely, when everything is lined up ever so perfectly, they plan to get around to comfortably creating those fabulous masterpieces they know they have buried deep inside them and which are just bursting to get out. When they do finally sit down, said masterpieces are expected to manifest themselves easily and seamlessly. It's a wonderful dream, and an admirable goal, and if it helps people get through their lives, then it's not all bad. I can't say I haven't fantasized about full-time writing a few thousand times myself, just as I've fantasized about stories effortlessly appearing from the ether, presenting themselves perfectly on a page, and being snapped up immediately by ecstatic editors.

Unfortunately, for most people, the day job is a necessity, life never lets up, art is hard, and oases of peace and quiet with no distractions rarely present themselves just before a deadline.

So just shut up, sit down, and do the work, Bukowski bluntly says, and do it now:

no baby, if you’re going to create

you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or

you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children

while you’re on

welfare,

you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown

away,

you’re going to create blind

crippled

demented,

you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your

back while

the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,

flood and fire.

If you have the urge, creating is not a luxury, but a necessary part of life. You have to negotiate, you have to prioritise. You can't do everything, so you have to choose. The act of choosing is what makes something important to you. If you choose not to, that's fine, but then don't pretend creating is as vital to you as the very air you breathe. Do it as a hobby. Nothing wrong with that at all. Enjoy the process. But either do it or don't. The rest is waffling.

Over at Zen Pencils they've actually illustrated the whole poem. The pictures are as amusing as the poem itself.

Hmm, I feel a Bukowski episode coming on. I think I'll be dropping the word baby into conversations for the next few weeks.