Writing and Drugs

[davybyrne]

Hey everyone,

I'm new here!

I was curious about other people's writing habits as I've done more writing than ever in my life the last two months! It's been fun and a nice outlet, but a little exhausting at times... and well, when you get bored you spice things up!

I've found that some alcohol, preferably beer or whiskey, seems to really get my juices flowing. A nice buzz helps in my quantity of writing, but not so much in quality. Some sober editing and rewriting is required!

Marijuana, on the other hand, is a total disaster. I can barely write a sentence that is intelligible, any dialog sounds awkward and stilted, and conjunctions read like words from an alien language! I also get sucked into the thesaurus or dictionary like a black hole.

Oddly, I can still do some editing when stoned, but mostly for basic grammar and typos. I find it strange because weed is so great for other creative acts I might dabble in, like art and music, but I find it unbearable for writing!

Other drugs, I have no writing experience while using. So, does anyone else enjoy performance unenhancing drugs when trying to be creative, or have any humorous tales to share?

-Davy

 

[HBergeron]

Hey everyone,

I'm new here!

I was curious about other people's writing habits as I've done more writing than ever in my life the last two months! It's been fun and a nice outlet, but a little exhausting at times... and well, when you get bored you spice things up!

I've found that some alcohol, preferably beer or whiskey, seems to really get my juices flowing. A nice buzz helps in my quantity of writing, but not so much in quality. Some sober editing and rewriting is required!

Marijuana, on the other hand, is a total disaster. I can barely write a sentence that is intelligible, any dialog sounds awkward and stilted, and conjunctions read like words from an alien language! I also get sucked into the thesaurus or dictionary like a black hole.

Oddly, I can still do some editing when stoned, but mostly for basic grammar and typos. I find it strange because weed is so great for other creative acts I might dabble in, like art and music, but I find it unbearable for writing!

Other drugs, I have no writing experience while using. So, does anyone else enjoy performance unenhancing drugs when trying to be creative, or have any humorous tales to share?

-Davy

Everybody is different. I prefer to write completely sober, perhaps with a very slowly sipped cocktail. There have been times when, because of an initial mistake in my reasoning when threading out the plot, that I realize something will not work, and I have to see if there's a reasonable alternative that doesn't upset too much the apple cart I have planned. Typically this would be in the 2nd act of a 3 act format = which is where many stories and scripts fall apart. If I logjam too long, I may take a miniscule hit of pot and let my mind wander over the landscape of the plot, and quite often it works.

Later, I have to double-check my logic to make sure it is intact. Other than that, I don't write high, but that's just me.

Do whatever works for you.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

Hey everyone,

I'm new here!

I was curious about other people's writing habits as I've done more writing than ever in my life the last two months! It's been fun and a nice outlet, but a little exhausting at times... and well, when you get bored you spice things up!

I've found that some alcohol, preferably beer or whiskey, seems to really get my juices flowing. A nice buzz helps in my quantity of writing, but not so much in quality. Some sober editing and rewriting is required!

Marijuana, on the other hand, is a total disaster. I can barely write a sentence that is intelligible, any dialog sounds awkward and stilted, and conjunctions read like words from an alien language! I also get sucked into the thesaurus or dictionary like a black hole.

Oddly, I can still do some editing when stoned, but mostly for basic grammar and typos. I find it strange because weed is so great for other creative acts I might dabble in, like art and music, but I find it unbearable for writing!

Other drugs, I have no writing experience while using. So, does anyone else enjoy performance unenhancing drugs when trying to be creative, or have any humorous tales to share?

-Davy

Last week I was enjoying some jam my friend gave me hoping it would help me write...nope I just fell asleep every time.

Years ago when I took ambien for sleep I could write some pretty great stuff though...pity I don't have insurance now.

And WELCOME!

 

[KeithD]

Yellowtail Shiraz, but never ever so much as tobacco in terms of drugs.

 

[Jada59]

I no longer consume alcohol. I never was much of a drinker. I did used to bowl on a league and noticed that if I had exactly 1.5 Amaretto Sours, my score increased. But any more or less than that, didn't help. Never noticed that alcohol improved my writing. Never really thought about it. And maybe never wrote anything after consuming alcohol.

I do remember a friend showing me a story that she and some other friends wrote. It made no sense whatever. I said, "What were you guys on at the time?" Magic mushrooms. Uh uh.

I have smoked pot. It's legal here. I seem to be impervious to it. I once finished off a platter of crab wontons after smoking some. I do not normally like crab or wontons. Other than that, no effect whatever. Not even the edibles for pain.

Other drugs? Not my thing. I have learned that I like to be in control of my senses. Exception being certain moments during sex when I am taken away to some wonderful place that is neither here nor there. Not the same though as I know I will soon be back to reality.

So bottom line is... I write sober. When I smoked, I did find that cigarettes helped me to stay alert though.

 

[Hypoxia]

Whatever gets you through the paragraph.

 

[oggbashan]

Coffee. More coffee. Add coffee...

 

[LupusDei]

For a weird case, I'm at my most creative when I haven't got any sleep the night before. It's a weird thing to do intentionally and it doesn't always happen, but is a way to enter altered state of mind, bring the censor down and stop overthink things without affecting the logic.

Sounds like it could be done by alcohol, but that doesn't work for me, too little and I just develop instant hangover forty minutes after having a beer or wine, little more and I can't really concentrate anymore or can start preach really strange stuff. Same about nicotine, I need more than a standard cigarette to get any buzz, and if I have some three days in a row, any effect just vanishes leaving only bad taste and headaches. Coffeine, sure, I can't function without a daily dose, but that's just background, and if I overdo it doesn't do anything good either, just physical discomfort, uncontrollable heightened heart rate and so. Haven't ever tried weed or anything else, although some of it sounds like fun I'm never sure it would work on me as advertised. Well, as I sometimes joke, that's problems you get for being a werewolf.

 

[Areala-chan]

Like other posters here, I have no desire to lose control of any of my senses for any reason at all. Write sober, edit sober for this gal.

 

[jaF0]

Don't be a Dope(r).

 

[CandiCame]

I used to take things like oxis or L10s and thought it made me a better writer, because they make you talk so much, but I don't know if it worked or not.

Weed DEFINITELY makes me better, but I don't know that it makes me more creative. I have an anxiety disorder where I normally can't focus on one thing, I have to have a bunch of tabs open and flip through them, and just bullshit, and you know, not work. When I smoke, I don't do that. I open the document and write, because it brings my energy level down to what it should be. So like... it works for the actual medical reason it should, not because it's making me more creative or whatever. It really does just bring the anxiety down so I can focus.

But I haven't had any in a while. I've had to rely on big pharma.

 

[Emirus]

Imagination is the best drug to help your writing.


Plus a little alcohol for medicinal purposes.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

A quick Google search brings up plenty of famous authors who either used alcohol (or battled with it) including names like Hemingway, Joyce, Hunter S. Thompson, Yates, Capote, Poe, and so many more. Like any other writing system, I'm sure the answer varies from writer to writer as much as "do you outline first or just write?"

Too much alcohol makes my fingers too sloppy. Weed has more interesting effects, but not something I've done in a long while. Never tried writing during my coke days. Same with dropping acid, writing wasn't on my list of things to do.

 

[Hypoxia]

Has anyone here tried writing after being tasered?

 

[KeithD]

A quick Google search brings up plenty of famous authors who either used alcohol (or battled with it) including names like Hemingway, Joyce, Hunter S. Thompson, Yates, Capote, Poe, and so many more. Like any other writing system, I'm sure the answer varies from writer to writer as much as "do you outline first or just write?"

Too much alcohol makes my fingers too sloppy. Weed has more interesting effects, but not something I've done in a long while. Never tried writing during my coke days. Same with dropping acid, writing wasn't on my list of things to do.

I haven't had any hard liquor since leaving the embassy circuit more than two decades ago. I have wine now (and why wouldn't I, with twenty-six wineries within a half-hours drive of my house?) and like to have a glass of it at hand (or coffee earlier in the day) while I write--but only to make me mellow. I don't get drunk and wouldn't try to do anything creative while I was drunk. I try to stick to a rule of both wine and coffee only on every other day and not on the same day.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I think it was Hemingway who advised ‘write drunk, edit sober’. Makes sense to me.

 

[SimonDoom]

Coffee in the morning. Always. Without exception.

A bit of bourbon in the evening, sometimes.

 

[RetroFan]

I've seen some stories on this site so bizarre that I think whoever thought of them must have taken LSD beforehand.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I’ve seen too many people in ER as a result of drugs and excessive alcohol to overdo either, although in my well-spent youth there was this Chinese restaurant and a lazy Susan and a bottle of vodka....

I write on caffeine. Lots and lots of caffeine.

 

[MelissaBaby]

Hmmm.

When I was young and had never done drugs, I wrote.

I started doing drugs and didn't write a word for years.

I stopped doing drugs, I write.

I'm going to consider that a lesson.

 

[BuckyDuckman]

I haven't had any hard liquor since leaving the embassy circuit more than two decades ago. I have wine now (and why wouldn't I, with twenty-six wineries within a half-hours drive of my house?) and like to have a glass of it at hand (or coffee earlier in the day) while I write--but only to make me mellow. I don't get drunk and wouldn't try to do anything creative while I was drunk. I try to stick to a rule of both wine and coffee only on every other day and not on the same day.

Afraid you'll have to do better than that if you want to join the ranks of Hemingway, Joyce, Hunter S. Thompson, Yates, Capote, Poe, et al.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Afraid you'll have to do better than that if you want to join the ranks of Hemingway, Joyce, Hunter S. Thompson, Yates, Capote, Poe, et al.

Yeah, but most of them topped themselves didn't they? I prefer to go more gracefully....

 

[KeithD]

Yeah, but most of them topped themselves didn't they? I prefer to go more gracefully....

That's not very macho of you.

 

[ChloeTzang]

That's not very macho of you.

Definitely not. I’m thinking more Oscar Wilde myself. With my last words being something hilarious. I want everyone laughing and saying “that was just like her.” I’d like to be lying there and saying “give me a kiss” and wearing fake vampire teeth and then do one of those one liners everyone remembers....

And I love that Madison Mills cover. That’s gorgeous.

 

[ishtat]

Yellowtail Shiraz, but never ever so much as tobacco in terms of drugs.

But there is a connection. Yellowtail was started by the Casella family at Griffith NSW in 1969. It did not develop much until it appeared to have obtained significant capital from somewhere.

Later one of the Casella brothers (and Yellowtail director) was jailed with respect to a 'friend' growing marijuana on an industrial scale. The family has been under almost constant investigations for various criminality but amidst all that the legitimate business of Yellowtail wines became a huge success as an exporter of decent and well priced wine.