On Writing

by Charles Bukowski

happened? At eight o’clock one Sunday morning—EIGHT O’CLOCK!!! gd damn it—there was a knock on the door—and I opened it and there stood an editor. “Ah, I’m so and so, editor of so and so, we got your short story and thought it most unusual; we are going to use it in our Spring number.” “Well, come on in,” I’d had to say, “but don’t stumble over the bottles.” And then I sat there while he told me about his wife who thought a lot of him and about his short story that had once been published in The Atlantic Monthly, and you know how they talk on. He finally left, and a month or so later the hall phone rang and somebody wanted Bukowski, and this time it was a woman’s voice, “Mr. Bukowski, we think you have a very unusual short story and the group was discussing it the other night, but we think it has one weakness and we thought you might want to correct the weakness. It was this: WHY DID THE CENTRAL CHARACTER BEGIN TO DRINK IN THE FIRST PLACE?” I said, “Forget the whole thing and send the story back,” and I hung up. When I walked back in the Indian looked up over his drink and asked “Who was it?” I said, “Nobody,” which was the most accurate answer I could give.