Cough medicine and writting

[knitedreams]

I'm currently under the affects of Benadryl (damn ragweed) and I've been working on one of my latest chapters. The amazing thing is that the words are flowing freely in an endless stream and it's great. Does anyone else find that writing is easier when you've taken Benadryl, cough medicine, or any medicine that makes you sleepy?

 

[Guest]

Sometimes a bit of rum helps my words flow.



(Sometimes it turns me into a blithering idiot, too.)

 

[DerelictionOfSanity]

Nope, my allergy medication tends to make me borderline comatose. I write much better when I'm sneezing.

 

[Guest]

Nope, my allergy medication tends to make me borderline comatose. I write much better when I'm sneezing.

Doesn't that get ick all over the monitor?

 

[knitedreams]

Nope, my allergy medication tends to make me borderline comatose. I write much better when I'm sneezing.

I'd think that would cause you to hit the wrong keys sometimes.

 

[Belegon]

I'd think that would cause you to hit the wrong keys sometimes.

Vodka does that too.

 

[impressive]

Why does the thread title make me miss Rika?

 

[Weird Harold]

Does anyone else find that writing is easier when you've taken Benadryl, cough medicine, or any medicine that makes you sleepy?

I have some of my best story ideas in that half-awake, half-dreaming state just before I fall completely asleep. The few that I've actually manged to record in some manner make no sense at all when I'm fully awake.

Likewise, when I was an active lush (before I reformed) I was the wittiest and most charming person on the face of the planet when I was well-oiled with rum, scotch, bourbon or beer (or sometimes all of the above.) Although some of my friends did try to convince me that the audio tapes they made of some drunken asshole were me, I trust my memory more than I do the audio technology of the day (and thank God that I became a Reformed Lush before video cameras, digital cameras, and the Internet became popular/affordable. )

Still, while you may find that your writing is not quite as brilliant as it seems now when you go back to edit, at least you're getting words-on-paper and that's the most important step in writing anything.

 

[knitedreams]

I have some of my best story ideas in that half-awake, half-dreaming state just before I fall completely asleep. The few that I've actually manged to record in some manner make no sense at all when I'm fully awake.

I get that too, but they're lucid and I understand where I was going after I am fully awake and rereading my notes. It just bugs me that brilliant ideas for academic papers come to me right before I drop off to dream land and it happens when I have classes the next day. Maybe that's why I'm not getting enough sleep lately...

 

[Fuzzy_Peach]

A little red wine is good for priming the pump. If you find you write more freely under a cold medicine induced fog, that's a good indication that you might normally be shackled by inhibition. Freewriting is a great way to recapture some of that lubed-up inhibition-free state.

Or, more red wine works too.

-fuzzy

 

[JamesSD]

It's a pretty well established fact that mood altering chemicals, be it booze, drugs, or just lack of sleep can help lower filters and creative blocks.

Of course, they also can make you completely non-productive, or spew out garbage that you think is good. I had a former roommate who once wrote a 17 page manifesto while under the influence of not sleeping for two days that he was convinced explained all the deep mysteries of the universe: It was really just meaningless babble.

 

[knitedreams]

Wine is nice, but I'm not much of a drinker. I mostly stick to my cough medicine, allergy medication, and pain pills (on those very rare occasions that my accident prone state has landed me in a position to have them).

Now that I've made the decision to write stories on a regular basis, I wonder if I'll be more productive during allergy season...