Clearly I’m not drinking enough
I ran across this opinion in the LA Times the other day. It essentially suggests that writing and the craft of writing is better served when approached with a drink. Not too much, mind you, but finding that delicate balance between setting the mind free and snockered. Great quote in here by Cratinus, who said “No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by water drinkers.”
So then, the question clearly becomes: is the reason I am having so much difficulty finding the muse, finishing my novel, the generally poor state of my poetry, and the inability lately to put on paper any fresh ideas the simple fact that I’m not drinking enough? Is my literary impotency to be resolved by finding the bottom of a bottle, the age-old literary viagra?
Hmmm…
Rua MacTírean said,
March 24, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Funny you should say that, I notice a distinct change in my style of writing when I’m off the booze. It becomes less anecdotel and impassioned-in fact, I start showing serious signs of ‘common sense’ and ‘logic’. Spelling also improves
Scott said,
March 24, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Ah, who needs spelling? That’s what spell-check is for in Word…
Scott said,
March 24, 2008 at 3:34 pm
But you bring up a good point: the fluctuation in writing style as the drink takes effect or starts to dry up. I wonder how much my style would change, smashed versus buzzed versus sober. I can’t say I’ve ever tried writing-under-the-influence, and for some I’ve read, it should be a crime, but for others, I wonder how amazed I’d actually be with their writing were it not penned under the auspices of one Mr Johnnie Walker…?
Rua MacTírean said,
March 24, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I dunno, I’d consider writing while actually drunk to be quite a lazy approach but that said, it worked for Underworld. Writing on pills-now that could be interesting. A lot of great writers were alcos but I don’t think they wrote while pissed, Dylan Thomas and Hemmingway both managed to stay sober for large parts of the day in order to churn out books
Scott said,
March 25, 2008 at 12:40 am
Personally, I don’t know how some of the writers (living or dead) write when tanked. But that’s because I’m a sleepy sleepy drunk. Three drinks (beer, wine, or harder) and I’m out like a light.
However, I can understand the association between writing and drinking. After all, when you’re a professional writer, churning out fiction, with nothing and no one to socialize with but your typewriter and the words you’re so desperately trying to jam into some meaningful form, what else are you going to do to shake the boredom? Writing and the profession of writing is a solitary art (though I suppose most art forms are). When you’re all alone, sometimes your best friend is a bottle.
Rua MacTírean said,
March 25, 2008 at 3:21 pm
There was a report in either the Gardian or Newsweek a while back about a study which proved writers die younger. They went way back to early Russian and central European writers and found that they always have died younger for some reason. Poets are the worst, kicking the bucket an average of 6 years before their contemporaries-no wonder we’re so fucked
Scott said,
March 25, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Well, in all fairness, did they adjust that curve for the number of writers who’ve offed themselves? I mean, that alone has to bring the median age down a bit…
Which I suppose doesn’t make it any safer for us…