ClancyBoy

It worked so well for Hemingway, why can't I manage it? I only had one beer with lunch and all I can write now are forum posts.

Is there a trick?

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"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

Dookie

Never tried it before but just thinking about being drunk and trying to write makes me think you'd write some pretty funny stuff. Have you never written yourself a note when you get home drunk one night and then look at it the next day? It's strange, you didn't write it. A drunk version of you did and that drunk version of yourself is almost definately a fool. You could get some ideas out of him but never a story. How Hemingway ever did it is indeed a mystery. All I can suggest is that drink works differently on different people.

On another note, you wouldn't last long in life if you had to get drunk everytime you wanted to write. A person ought to use their liver and kidneys as footballs if they want to do that.

The Backward OX

Have to agree with Dookie that drink affects different people in different ways.

Hst, I do agree that, for some, a form of loosening up would be beneficial. Note the key words "for some." Gosh, it would probably work for me, now that I think about it. I may take up drinking again.

I googled "writing while drunk" and got 235,000 hits.

I don't know if you were being serious or just joshing, with your post. If the former, give some thought to how you really relax, let go. Or ask someone who knows you well.

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lisajane

Never tried writing drunk before, but have written while strung-out on a high fever, wrote comedy after comedy...

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Erik Buchanan

Yeas. Don't.

If you start driinking to write, all you will become is a drunk. You may or may not produce good work, but if you believe that drinking somehow improves your writing, you will become dependent on it, and not be able to write without it. Then you will find that you can't write with it, because booze kills creativity in the long term.

Booze, drugs, etc. don't improve you as a writer. The are a crutch and like all crutches, eventually they give out.

Thus endeth the sermon.

Rumrunner

Note: The following comments are not intended for those under the legal drinking age in the jurisdiction where they reside. This is what I do, not what I'm recommending you do.... Not that it matters, because we all know you're going to drink anyway.

Weeeelllll... I guess it depends on how drunk we're talking about. Just one beer and you're having trouble focusing, then maybe you need to work on raising your tolerance

Generally I don't write whole coherent scenes when I'm drunk, because I never like the way the structure turns out. Instead, I write a jumble of snippets, just related but unconnected paragraphs really. And a lot of my dialogue. I find it gives things that bitter edge that way.

Also, I smoke a lot at the same time - mmm, cloves, yummy - because the stimulant effect of the nicotine somewhat counteracts the loss of focus caused by the alcohol. Sometimes I'll take caffeine pills, too, although those f$&@ with my stomach.

Then, later - usually the next day - I go through and pick the parts I like and organize them into a coherent form. Since I'm therefore usually hung-over and cranky, I'm a much more critical editor, too.

--Rumrunner

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CelticCricket

The only things I have written while being drunk is to my friends on Yahoo mess. While I am in the process of writing to them, I am laughing my butt off because I have to rewrite what I have written to make sense for them.

But as for a story while drunk...Nope. I save that stuff for when I am clear-headed that way I won't have to rewrite it.

Mermaid on the breakwater

Yes, most definitely write when you are drunk. This way you will simply have to go back and rewrite it, which you might not do if you wrote it sober in the first place.

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ClancyBoy

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"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

wyf

You only write better drunk if you write better drunk. i don't drink at all any more, but sometimes my writing flows better with a joint behind it. its different for different ppl, i presume.

Rumrunner

I'm sure that's very much true.

Honestly, for me, I'm not so much sure that I actually write better while drunk, more a question of whether I write at all. I have some, ah, issues with anxiety and self-criticism, and if I just sit down and try write, I can't focus. When I try to clear my mind to let the creativity flow, other stuff sneaks in first. I get so tangled up in fretting over everything else I'm perpetually stressed over, that I just sit there hyperventilating and have a mini-sized nervous breakdown and don't write anything at all. Probably, if I could get past that, I would write better - and more - without it.

So, probably, if you can write just fine without drinking, you should probably stick to that. Better for your health, anyway, and from what I've read of your stuff already, Clancy, I don't think you need to drink. (Excluding, of course, the screenplay posted in the above link ) I'm not suggesting people should drink and write, though in hindsight it might have sounded like that. Just, do what works for you.

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"But as he gazed on truth his aching eyes grew dim...."
-- Byron, from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto the First

wyf

I think i used to write quite well when drunk, but i was unable to stop and most likely if i got drunk i'd wake up 3 days later with someone i didnt recognise

Rumrunner

That only happens in my dreams. I've woken up places and wondered "how the f$^# did I get here," but always alone I would think, though, that would at least give you something interesting to write about?

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"But as he gazed on truth his aching eyes grew dim...."
-- Byron, from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto the First

wyf

It has, but although it's probably a male dream, it's not so much fun in practic nor is waking up in a pool of your own bodily fluids, whether urine, vomit or something really nasty. its given me stuff to write about, but i prefer to write about sexual encounters that i can remember instead of the ones i hear the rumors about after.

Loulou

Clancy, drink enough so that your inhibitions are less but not so much that you can't see. The amount varies from person to person. Find your own perfect state of inebriation, be it two beers or fifteen. Mine's around three and a half glasses of wine or three cocktails. However do not, and this is important, attempt to text on a mobile phone while shitfaced. I sent a rather obscene message once to the mother of a child in my daughter's class. No, it wasn't intended for her but let's just say I stood behind the trees in the school playground for a few weeks after....

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