So I have this romantic notion of the writer who locks himself in a room with a bottle of bourbon and spews out paraghraph after paragraph of belligerent prose. Most of it will be shit-canned. Some of it will be blindingly brilliant. The filter is off, she is not second guessing herself, and emotions occasionally transfer themselve's from the brain to the page in a way that makes other writers want to murder her and dissolve her corpse in that acid that they use in Rodger Rabbit. No evidence for the pilfering of her amazing sentences.
So that is my daydream, the type of writer I want to be. But I sit down with a head full of liqour and a motive, and nothing comes. What does come is less than mediocre. I feel like my filter is properly cleansed, I have half-baked ideas that I think seem brilliant at the time, but in the morning I find it is all a bunch of dull jack-offery.
So does anyone here write white intoxicated? Not trying to blow cover, I just want tips. How do you manage to write sellable, delicious sentences in that mindstate? Should I stick to only writing sober?
Well without judging who does what to get what results, if writing drunk isn't working try to write sober.
You may be looking at this in slightly the wrong way. I doubt that the experiance of being drunk is any catalyst to creativity. Addiction is something that happens in the brain, otherwise well meaning and sometimes brilliant people sucumb to what some might call demons. Others less prosaic, call it a neuro-chemical imbalance. In either case the effect is the same, pain! Pain that sometimes can drive those enduring it to try to gain release in any way they can.
You can't fake it either, you can drink all you want, it won't make you an alcholic. It just makes you drunk until you sober up. Addicts know who they are, most are just ordinary people with no more creativity than the rest of us. Addicts don't want to be addicts, they want to be like everybody else, and they know whats going on. They are aware that someone or something else has hijacked their brain and is driving them towards a cliff of destruction. They are trapped inside their own bodies pounding on the glass and screaming to get out while watching themselves hurtle over a cliff. There's nothing they can do about it and they know it. It's a hrad place to be and it's a hard thing to watch.
If you want some creative inspiration, get to know an alchoholic or an addict. Have some sympathy, compassion and respect. Understand their pain and if you can write it down with honest empathy, I bet it will be a good and compelling story.
I can't write when drunk. Tooooo sleeeeeepy. I'll get some decent ideas sometimes when intoxicated, but that's not the time to execute them, just make a note of them for later, possibly when fueled by caffeine.
This piece sums it up pretty well.
Other substances have been far more effective, but they've gotta be the exception rather than the rule, as with alcohol. All things in moderation, after all.
-Well said Otterman. I was drunk and angry when I typed that last night, so I embellished a bit. That is not really the type of writer I want to be, that would be suicide anyway. Usually about once, maybe twice a week I will say to myself that i'm going to lock myself in my room all night with a bottle and two packs of Spirits and write the night away. And it sounds great, and I get very excited. None of those nights have produced anything I would call good. Maybe a sentence or two, but yeah, basically fruitless.
Also my roommate is an alcoholic and I am close enough to being one. I used to be a drug addict and a bunch of other bad things, so I definitely have sympathy. And a lot of it has fueled my fiction.
-Too true Gordon. Cigarettes are one thing I picked up again since I began writing this novel, need em, great fuel.
Not trying to offend anyone. I think it is a silly notion, and quite possibly a dangerous road to alcoholism. There isn't a single thing anyone does better when drunk. Your brain function slows, which can't possibly help your writing. Anyone who was brilliant drunk would have likely been better sober. Any filters that go away could be removed just as easily with conscious practice. I can't do X sober, or I only do X when drunk is something alcoholics say. I've never done anything drunk that I wouldn't do sober if I'd made up enough excuses.
My plan is never to set out to get drunk and write. I used to drink alot, on a nightly basis. Mostly beer, so unlike with hard liquor, the buzz is gradual and lasting. Anyway, Back then, if I had planned to write that night I'd sit at my desk and work on what ever story I was working on and drink my beer when thirsty. I don't really think it affected my writing in a possitive or negative way. I'd write until I was too drunk to read and then go to bed. Like sober writing, a first draft is a first draft that needs editing, but I do that part completely sober. Some of the stories I've published where origininally written while drinking so who knows.
I do seem to get random ideas when I'm drunk and alone (Wow that sounds bad) But like Gordon I mostly just make notes of those ideas. Or write a couple lines of dialoug. Or maybe a couple paragraphs. It's nice to have all these tiny peices of a story to come back and work on at a later time.
I don't drink nearly as much these days. Once a week tops. And I find I prefer to do other things when drinking than write. So I really don't konw if this answers your question, but it's my experience with it either way.
Hemmingway once said something like 'Write while drunk, edit while sober.' I kind of do the reverse, except I can't do it wasted, and these days I don't much like getting wasted anyway. I find after a few drinks I see a story through a slightly different set of lenses - it doesn't make it better, but it means those inhibitions like thinking 'my story sucks and I hate my characters and why the fuck am I even doing this?' sometimes disappear and let me get on with constructive scrutinising of a piece.
Hemingway, as far as I know, never drank when he wrote. He wrote early in the morning through noon and didn't drink during that time. Just look at the problems S. King had with drinking. Didn't he say he doesn't even remember writing The Tommyknockers? That's not a benefit in my mind. If you want to write without filter, I think you just write every day, and eventually you will have no filter.
The presiding opinion seems to be that drinking+writing= shittier words. I think that I get my most brilliant, or at least completely absurd, ideas while intoxicated. But stringing those ideas together in a non-self indulgent, sensical way, is best left to the sober or caffeine spiked mind.
I remember in my late teens, smoking a lot of ummm herbal tea... and having these amazing insights. I tried to write a couple of them down as I was sure they were truly earth shaking. The results were completely non-sensical when I read them the next morning. It was pretty funny!
So here's a thought I'm going to throw in here:I believe what offers the best creativity/inspiration is the things we live through (or at least close enough to that it effects us) and yeah, I'm mostly talking the shit stuff, the heartbreak, the traumas. Pivotal emotional moments. The awesome moments work too of course, but there's something powerful in sadness.
And sometimes how people cope with the things life throws them is to drink, or do other stuff. I'm guessing (because I'm in no way an expert here) most addicts can link back to a moment they're trying to escape/forget. Except maybe cigarettes, people tend to get addicted to them on the premise of looking cool, right? :P
Anyway, point is: these drunk/doped creative geniuses (and I'm talking any genre of creativity here), well I'd bet they'd be just as awesome sober. A substance doesn't make you who you are.
And for the record if you really want to know: I only get drunk if it's a night out at the pub. Grow up with an alcoholic parent and you don't want to drink in the house. You don't want to bring that to your kids. My dad was an alcoholic, my husbands mom was an alcoholic. Something's don't need to be said, they're like an unwritten rule of understanding.
Ahh that was a downer of a post wasn't it. Sorry.
Good observation voodoo. The author of the recent book The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking touches a little bit on the trauma to art/trauma to drinking parallel as well in her new interview at the Rumpus:
http://therumpus.net/2014/01/the-rumpus-interview-with-olivia-laing/
Her book's been getting all kinds of great press recently for anyone interested in delving deeper on the subject. She focuses on Carver, Cheever, Tennesse Williams, John Berryman, Hem and Fitzgerald.
I generally prefer popcorn over alcohol, though when I do its a beer. I'm more of a popcorn addict than anything else. And that's more "if I finish a chapter, maybe I can have some popcorn." But never writing while I'm eating popcorn.
And yes I drink, but I'd write the same way with or without. The good news is whatever you write while drinking can be edited later.
I find the trope of the hard drinking tough-o writer kind of funny and probably writerly wishful thinking, lol. I mean really, what could be safer or tamer than sitting alone for hours with a computer or pencil. :p
A drink might help me unwind if my mind isn't in that free flowing place for writing fiction. But music works better, and more than one drink will make me too lazy to bother with it.
It's an unpopular opinion among writers, but I agree with Jack Campbell completely:
Not trying to offend anyone. I think it is a silly notion, and quite possibly a dangerous road to alcoholism. There isn't a single thing anyone does better when drunk. Your brain function slows, which can't possibly help your writing. Anyone who was brilliant drunk would have likely been better sober. Any filters that go away could be removed just as easily with conscious practice. I can't do X sober, or I only do X when drunk is something alcoholics say. I've never done anything drunk that I wouldn't do sober if I'd made up enough excuses.
We used to have a guy back on The Cult that swore by the Bukowski method of doing drugs and drinking while writing.
He doesn't write anymore.
Yeah, when I'm on a semi-regular writing schedule, things like a post-work happy hour aren't doable. Or if friends want to go out on the weekend, I insist on meeting up with them as late as possible (with friends getting older, this is tough). Because in either instance, I have a few drinks and I'm done for the night in the productivity department. Which makes me not very sociable, and then feeling guilty for neglecting one or the other.
Some people are most verbose (and most funny) when drinking, and if you're the type who can take the desire or instinct to speak and redirect it into your writing, then maybe you could write some good stuff while drunk.
I don't advocate getting sad-sloppy drunk at any time, for writing or anything else, but, you know, stuff happens.
It's not quite the same thing, but I did a little stand-up comedy a few years ago. When sober, I was terrible, but after one or two drinks I remembered my material better and could ad-lib and cut down hecklers. I think there's something to be said for anything that removes inhibitions and takes off a couple of your mental filters... but personally, story ideas pop into my head when I'm doing menial tasks and the nuts and bolts of writing is something that requires deep concentration.
I was going to write my usual thousand or so words last night but I forgot it was my friends birthday. 3 pitchers and 5 picklebacks later, I'm thinkin i'm feelin good - feelin great! - gonna go home and hammer out some beautiful prose. I typed a paragraph and passed out. I look at the paragraph today, and it's amazing... if it was written by a nine year old.
Picklebacks??? Is that vodka and a pickle wedge, wife's friend used to do those. I still shudder!
I think there a many variations of the drink, but the one's they made at the bar were whiskey of our choice followed by a shot of pickle juice. They are really good if you like pickle juice.
oh and Ha! I too had a (very short) stint in stand-up comedy. The first time I drank beforehand and actually made a few folks chuckle. Second attempt I was dead sober, and bombed miserably. Never tried it again.
It's like any performance activity. If I'm playing a music gig, having a couple of drinks first is worth the 10% hit to my execution (which I can spare) for a 30% improvement in relaxation and confidence (which I have less of), and I would argue that the latter even makes the former better in some intangible ways. It's mainly for singing, which I'm very uncomfortable with, but know it's necessary (I can play circles around most guitarists—no nerves there). So, a couple of drinks first. I've done quite a few readings, and can't remember any where I didn't have a nip or two before. Too many, in some instances, I confess, but it was all because of the merrymaking atmosphere, not any fear of public speaking (I'm a broadcaster, for chrissakes). Generally, though, I'm not much of a drinker.
I needed a drink to persuade me to start like this:
"You're probably wondering who this confident guy in the fancy shirt is, maybe think I'm a little arrogant. But I suffer from very low self-esteem. I have nightmares where I go to prison and nobody will rape me."
Muffled laughter.
"Ah, I think I'll get away with that one. Eight out of ten rape jokes are never reported."
A few laughs.
To girl in the front row: "Do you want to hear more rape jokes?"
"No."
"Is that a 'no' that really means 'yes'?"
I'm available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and children's parties. Diary's looking pretty empty...
Dude, I laughed out loud at that first one! Way better than any of my jokes, which I will NOT post.
Hey, figured I would post this here instead of starting a thread about it. And actually, maybe this should go in the "whoring" thread. But, seeing as there are some musicians here, could/should we start a thread where we post our sounds?
V.R. Stone. The next Neil Hamburger. :p
Having a drink could help turn your internal editor off. Anything beyond that is counterproductive.
I've found listlening to techno and classical seems to help with that. And then a distraction free word processor. (I'm not saying I don't drink, I just only drink with a meal.)
I'm not pro drinking or anything, but there is such a thing as state dependent learning. If you have done most of your writing (or whatever) sober or drunk, switching might be tough. If you are in AA or something don't use that as an excuse to get high!
@Dmcleod - You tried just writing sober lately?
@TheScrivener
Neil Hamburger hasn't made it to the sunny British Isles yet. I'll assume he's a cross between Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks and Will Ferrell.
Googles 'Neil Hamburger'.
Oh.
I can't write at all while drinking, I like to drink and do drunk stuff while drinking. Which is an awful feeling if you're drinking routinely and writing not so routinely. If you're really dedicated to both drinking and writing and do them well together, I'd say go ahead and live in that world. If you just want to get out of your head and into some other plane while writing, do something else. Some other substance or ritual that you can control and stay lucid, so you can stay immersive and turn the writing session into an experience. Even a large dose of candy and lots of loud music sounds like a much more efficient method that getting fucked up on booze and writing some boring shit.
Every once in a while, I remember two times very vividly, I'll be writing dead sober and just be in the zone, very excited about what I'm producing, and get the hugest flood of whatever brain chemicals or endorphin science stuff. That's a very satisfying high. It feels kinda like a traffic-dodging adrenalin high and some good opioid body buzz. That would be really cool to experience more often.
I agree with Renfield. The Zone is the best thing ever.
Substance-induced buzz is both exhausting and boring. Leave it to those who really can't help it.
I remember a while back reading that Lee Child smokes weed every single night. He's sold about a bazillion books and thinks that 'showing' vs. 'telling' is overrated.
Discuss.
Jack Reacher abides.
If you can't write while drunk, then you're not drinking enough! There is no finer place from which to create than the warm, fuzzy, buzzing blanket of sweet, sweet, booze-induced torpor.
re: Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher:
Tom Cruise could NEVER be Jack Reacher even in Tom's Wildest Dreams--don't get me started. I hope Dmcleod was being snarky?
Just my opinion, but being drunk and stoned on pot are two different experiences, as is high on LSD, coke, hash, opium, and (I have heard, not done) heroin. That said, I think it depends on who's has the creative bent; with most mediums, you can edit. Bottom line, I think, is if you have the spark, the gift, you'll have the drive; if you have the drive, you will create, one way or another.
I've read that people with addictive natures are some of the greatest artists. I don't know, but there do seem to be a lot of users among writers, sculptors, and painters--some of our greatest are "tormented souls." (Sidebar: they leave a lot of victims in their destructive paths at times.)
My question is, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Does being a creative person make you more likely to indulge in alcohol, drugs, all the other vices?
So, any other voices out there on this? And damn, I hate Daylight Savings!!!
Being creative means you've got plenty of imagination. Imagination brings in strong emotions. If you're not stone rock, emotions can be painful to deal with. Hence, you need be stoned.
Anyone who has an addiction will tell you they'd rather do without it. Addiction is a disease, an intolerance. Drug abuse numbs down the demons which it contributed to make meaner in the first place, and a whole set of feelings together with them. If you have an addiction, you very likely had a problem with emotions first. And you chose the wrong tools to fix it though dope may seem very effective in the beginning. But if your problems, say, rise from having been abused or such, it would be dumb to pretend you even knew there were proper tools available. Or maybe you just don't have the proper tools available - a caring environment to start with. So, you have to create your own.
To say it bluntly, You have to be a great writer first. Then, you'll have to survive your addiction long enough to be able to show the world what a great writer you are. Good luck with that.
The egg came first. It was laid by a creature very similar to the modern chicken.
Thanks guys! and I love the cartoon.
The egg is chicken.
I do find I write best when I'm half awake. Though whether it's half awake or half asleep is anyones guess. (Hence when I prefer 3-4 A.M, though 11-12 P.M can work.)
yes the cartoon rocks! I saw it yester and was still laughing about it this morn
It's follow-up joke time:
What did the egg say to the boiling water?
Don't ask me to get hard; I was just laid.
^ha! Not heard that one before :)
One beer or two fingers of whisky-single malt, straight.
I nurse it for the length of time/amount of words I've designated to get sorted out. Not sure if I've ever been drunk while writing, but it's nice to have something to reach for in between thoughts.
I do find I write best when I'm half awake. Though whether it's half awake or half asleep is anyones guess. (Hence when I prefer 3-4 A.M, though 11-12 P.M can work.)
There are times I'm the same way, scenes just flow. Others, nothing.
I actually thought I was to drunk to write last night, but ended up writing this flash fiction. It's not great by any means, but its not to bad after some editing.
Writing while your drunk just isn't something I'd recommend.
I've found over the years that drinking with the intent to write afterward never bodes well. I definitely drink more than I should, but once I've hit that two-drink point and I put my headphones on and sit in front of the computer, I pretty much always have a great time doing anything but writing.
There have been a few occasions where writing while intoxicated has gotten me to the point where I've typed out some stuff without the inner editor in me to delete it immediately afterward, and some of it I've actually saved and used the next morning, but other than that, I don't feel I've ever come up with my most genius stuff while drunk.
Really writing is about getting your head in the right space. Sometimes it might occur while you're drunk. Sometimes it'll occur while you're sitting in the bath, or while you're walking to work, or while you're taking a dump. That's why it's important to do all those things instead of deliberately trying to force your head to enter into that erotic mindspace that lacks all self-criticism.
My problem is that I usually write at night...which is also when I drink...
You know what? I'm about a quarter way through a STRONG IPA and it's actually helping me with a story I'm putting together.
Maybe drunk isn't so much the answer as a pleasant buzzing warmth?
