We all know who said that, right? Wrong. Ernest Hemingway* wrote sober and edited sober. He was, undeniably, a big fat drunk, but he penned his stories in the mornings and commenced his prodigious consumption in the afternoons.
So is there any benefit to writing under the influence? Well, probably. Stimulating the brain is hardly a bad idea when reaching for creativity. Studies have shown that a blood alcohol level of somewhere between 0.05 and 0.07 is the sweet spot for the kind of productive mild euphoria that comes with loosened inhibitions. Studies have also shown that you should cite your sources but I’m too lazy to do that. Watch Another Round. It explains it pretty well.
The link between productivity and substance misuse is extensively documented. I don’t need to tell you that Dorothy Parker, Hunter S Thompson, Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski - to name but four - were raving alcoholics, or that Stephen King doesn’t remember writing some of his famous early novels, or that F Scott Fitzgerald warned, ‘first you take a drink… and then the drink takes you.’ You’re smart. You know more than I do. Nor do I need to explain why some people like a drink, whereas others were lucky enough to be born with enough dopamine in their systems, thank you very much. Insecurity is probably a big factor. After all, the list of talented musicians who hit the big time simply through meeting the right band members before torpedoing their own careers by putting out cokehead third albums is unending. But addiction is complex. And debilitating. And not something I wish to take lightly.
Which is why it’s insulting, in many ways, that there’s so much romanticism behind the idea of the struggling creative, chasing the demons away at a dimly-lit whisky bar with pen in hand, reaching for their magnum opus at the bottom of a bottle. We’ve all got talking to barflies in our time: they might be entertaining for a while, but, nearer the end of the night, those stories don’t so much fly off the shelves as off their stools. Differentiating between a relaxed, moderately inebriated state of being - one where, after a few drinks, the subconscious mind might well be unlocked and powering towards what feels like a magical inspiration - and a hell-raising, unfocused incoherence that lacks any kind of compelling narrative, is crucial. And, with alcohol, it’s famously difficult to find that happy medium. One more for the road soon becomes show me the way to go home.
Something as multifaceted and difficult as writing (don’t let the sheer number of celebrity ‘authors’ fool you) can’t be realistically or effectively accomplished three sheets to the wind. It requires the juggling of characterisation and plot and convincing dialogue and description and et cetera, and all while utilising imagination and discipline. Most of the above requires consistent clarity of thought. Impulsive storytelling might work for a while but, in the cold, sober light of day, and certainly over the course of three-hundred pages, ideas will seem far less brilliant and colourful. Dependency and health concerns aside, the work runs the risk of being sketchy, inconsistent. Mastering the art of a well-crafted tale is more than a swift craft ale.
I’m quite proud of that line. It’s not up there with Parker’s ‘I’d rather have a drink in front of me than a frontal lobotomy’ but, considering I've had a couple of drinks, it's not half bad.
Oh yeah. I forgot to mention the feeble experiment I was conducting whilst typing this. I’ve frequently written whilst drinking in the past and, while I’m not convinced it’s for me, I thought I’d give it a go again. I don’t have a drinking problem (that’s what they all say, isn’t it?), but I do have a writing problem, so any solutions are gratefully received. Maybe I’ll tidy it up a bit in the morning (if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that writing is rewriting) but I think I've managed a pretty decent entry here, so far.
In fact, I might cut and run before it gets to the point of stammering intelligibility, before the wilful overreaching of linguistic tricks turns the prose purple and the insights indulgent. Flow versus quality, darling. But purple prose is better than beige any day of the week.
I don’t know if I’ve made my point. I don’t think I fully know what my point was.
I’m tired and I want to go to bed.
* I don't know who said it, but it's been misattributed to Hemingway. Points for anyone who knows who it actually was.
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