Lines from Charles Bukowski’s poem “so you want to be a writer” pop up on my Twitter feed daily. And they always make me mad.

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.

When I first read this I wondered if he meant it sarcastically. Don’t write if you have to work at it? Don’t write if you need input from other people? Doesn’t that stuff make writing better?

Then I had a moment of self-doubt. Nothing comes bursting out of me. A year ago I felt like my creativity was tightly contained in a steel box that I was trying to pry open with my bare fingers. By now I’ve gotten the lid open a crack and I’m shaking the box, trying to dislodge its contents. I’ve gotten some words out. But never in a burst.

Luckily I’m in my 40s and self-doubt doesn’t last too long. I’m not trying to be Charles Bukowski, he probably would have no use for me, and I’m at peace with that.

My kid read this poem too, in school. He reacted the same way I did. “Basically,” he said bitterly, “you have to be a genius.”

“Maybe he’s just saying that you should write if you have something urgent to say,” I suggested. Because I can’t let my kid be bitter, like me.

“Do you have something urgent to say?”

“I don’t know?”

“Me neither.”

After a year of trying, I do have things to say. I’m still discovering their urgency. And they probably will never burst out, but the box keeps opening a little more. Meanwhile I will continue to struggle and toil and not be a genius.