So all I really need to do to finish Nano is get insanely high. [stunt

I went out today just to get out of the house. I took my notebook with me in case I ended up writing something.

I stopped by the winebar in the shopping center near my house and ordered a glass of white zinfandel, because it was actually cheaper than a coffee and I figured if I was going to get a drink anyway I might as well give my money to a local business instead of adding to Starbucks' Take Over The World Fund.

Half a glass later I was two pages into an Actual For-Real Fanfic for the first time in what feels like ages. Granted it's none of the fics I'm supposed to be working on, but I wrote a thing, huzzah.

So, apparently, what I needed to do the whole time I was blocked and frustrated was get ~~drunk~~ buzzed. How charmingly simple.

~~Let's not talk about how a glass of white zinfandel is enough to get me buzzed, because yes I am that much of a lightweight.~~

Also a couple of the regulars there jokingly heckled me for drinking zin instead of "real" wine. They seemed suitably impressed when I told them I'd been drinking spicy Spanish reds since I was sixteen. ;) They also seemed jokingly surprised that I wasn't sixteen myself, but whatever, that happens a lot.

So what about you, flist? Do you find it easier to write when drunk/stoned/high/under the influence of your intoxicant of choice? Or does that make things harder?

ANYWAY. Should be a little thing for

tf_rare_pairing later tonight or tomorrow, depending on how long it takes me to write a conclusion and edit the drunk out of it. Also I just think I should notify you that the best thing about rolling chairs is that you can use them to dance and pretend you are in a music video. And you probably think this is yet more of me being boozy but no, I do this when I'm cold sober, I just have to wait until no one else is at home.

July

Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26 1	27	28	29	30	31

Sun

Mon

Tue

Wed

Thu

Fri

Sat

Heh, I find adrenaline is a sufficient motivator. Alcohol makes me hyper and chatty, but waaaay too distracted to do anything remotely resembling productive.

[link] [reply]

The thing is, I get really chatty and then really sleepy within about an hour after I drink. It's like mood whiplash. And, I don't know, sometimes it hasn't helped; maybe it was just this specific set of circumstances that let me write better, but I do think that having my inhibitions lowered a bit softens some of the self-editing and self-censoring I do when I write and allows me to transfer from my brain to the page more easily.

[link] [parent] [reply]

I'm most productive when in a fairly good mood.

I've never tried drawing while drunk or tipsy, and once my friend tried to get me to draw while we were high. But we made the mistake of having music so I ended up with fists full of markers drawing loopy-loops on paper in time with the music. XD Not very.... productive.

There is that - I can never write if I'm actually feeling depressed or mad. Well, I can, but nothing I want to admit to later; mostly it's just me taking out my bad mood on the fictional universe. XD

I can't say anything about drawing since I don't do it too often, but I feel like that would be harder if you weren't operating at %100 clarity, since it requires direct motor control, whereas to write you just have to hit the keys in a sort of order and hope it makes sense? I don't know, maybe it's more complicated than that.

I'm a cheap drunk too. A cheap drunk who likes vodka a bit more than she should. Bad combination. Nomnomscrewdrivers.

But

rhia_starsong said. I'm chatty as hell when I'm drunk. So forget picking up a pen...

Oh, I am terribly cheap. Depending on how much I've had to eat either a glass or two is enough to make me wobbly, and pretty much one cocktail is all I can handle. I think there was a time when I drank about a quarter of a glass of straight whiskey and I had to sit down for a half-hour. At least it means I spend less money?

When my daughter was younger, I'd wake up with her at 6 am, and after putting her back to bed I would stay up and write before going back to sleep myself. That was the most honest, from-the-soul writing I've even done.

...that's probably how I should have spent my time while my parents were away, honestly - the dog would wake me up at 6 for breakfast - but I'd usually be so tired I'd just go back to bed. I'll have to try that sometime - if I get up early enough that I don't have to get ready for work, then it's not like I can spend that time doing much of anything else. Thanks!

Alcohol in any significant amount makes my head hurt and I have to go lie down. Also the only kinds that I can stand the taste of are calvados and some fortified wines. I avoid drugs for health reasons (both personal health and public health, since my mom works in the inner city and is familiar with how a lot of these things are distributed). The only remotely intoxicant-like thing that I really consume is caffeine, in the form of tea and chocolate.

Yes, I really am just that boring. ;)

Oh, I'm hardly a very heavy drinker - I can't do more than a glass or two of wine or one cocktail before I start falling asleep, and I don't have much desire to get any more drunk than that. And, really, I know I should be working on turning off my self-editing impulse and perfectionism without chemical aids, but in the meanwhile it does help having them. Trust me, I'm the last person to call anyone boring. :)

*sheepishly raises hand* It's not that I can't write, and be perfectly productive while stone sober... I often find that it's somehow easier, more seamless, to write after I've had some wine. I typically have a half-glass most nights of the week. It doesn't take much to get me drunk (I'm a total lightweight, I drink white dessert wine!) so I don't give myself enough to get to that point. I drink slow, and after a while I open up GoogleDocs and see what happens.

...to be fair, I also need to remember to more thoroughly edit the things I write while drinking, because I've noticed some really magical and annoying issues that I didn't think to check for before posting. (Reusing a phrase, awkward phrasing, etc, but rarely typos for some reason.)

With the aid of alcohol or not, I'm so happy you're writing again :D :D

That's it exactly! It takes...depressingly little to get me tipsy, especially if I'm not taking my wine with food; one or two glasses is about it, and one strong cocktail is enough to make me too wobbly and tired to even try writing. XD But it does make it a lot easier to get the owrds out - it turns off the self-editor that keeps me from getting started or just putting any old thing on there so long as I'm writing, but unfortunately that self-editor is the one that catches tense switches and repeated phrases and other such things. I really do have to get better at sober freewrting.

it turns off the self-editor that keeps me from getting started

YES. Thank you, that's it! I couldn't think of how to phrase it. Not to mention, having a few sips of wine will do wonders for quantity. I honestly can get more done and stay focused longer if I'm a little buzzed. Like I said though, I'm working on editing more when I'm done so that my quality doesn't suffer. <3

Definitely, definitely, and I think it still has to do with the self-editing - you're less likely to slow down and double-check and second-guess yourself, so you go on longer and get more written.

Maybe that's what I'll do Saturday night. I'm not working Sundays. XD

I stopped drinking earlier this year when I realised I was drunk after half a small bottle of Grolsch beer :/

Hey, I managed to end up tipsy after one glass of weak white wine. I probably shouldn't be doing that much drinking either. :\

I can usually hold my liquor pretty well until I start drinking vodka. Vodka jumps up, punches me in the face, and I'm lights out after a single mixed drink. (And by lights out, I mean I fall asleep. The more intoxicated I get, the sleepier I get, until I just curl up and go to bed. XD)

Beer's usually my drink of choice, and since I've been on it since I was 14, I can handle it pretty well. I know I do homework better after a few cold ones, and usually hold conversations better. It slows my brain down so I don't feel the need to talk talk talk talk talk all the time. XD (Surprisingly, it keeps me from shouting obscene things at football games, too. 8|) So I can see why it might make you more productive!

Anything stronger than wine pretty much does that to me, especially if I'm not eating anything with it - I'm definitely a sleepy drunk. The first time I had a vodka martini I had to stagger out to the doughnut shop that was open until 3 a.m. in order to stay awake long enough to get back on the bus home, that's how bad it was. But I've been drinking wine since I was sixteen, so I'm usually okay with that - it takes a whole *two* glasses of that to make me sleepy. XD

I never had the guts to try doing homework buzzed, but a glass of wine does make me a lot less shy in crowds - the same self-editing impulse that keeps me from freewriting also keeps me from being casual and open in conversation, so I think the alcohol makes me a bit less uptight. It's interesting that you say it slows your brain down, though - that makes sense if it makes you sleepy, but alcohol makes me sleepy too and I just get progressively gigglier and loopier until I pass out.

Jack Daniels puts me to sleep instantly, but any other liquor or malt and I get a nice buzz. :D I tend to enjoy writing buzzed, but it is always silly and ridiculous. Well. During the first drink I actually settle my brain just enough to focus, and after that it's all silly and ridiculous. XD I get much less self-conscious about my writing and just enjoy whatever happens to come along.

I've never even tried Jack, or even bourbon; only whiskey I've tried is Scotch, and one tiny glass of neat Scotch is enough to make me wobble too much to write. I have to limit myself to a glass of wine if I want to keep going.

I'm the same way - when I write sober, I tend to want to do so many things that I can't even start; the alcohol relazes me a bit and turns off that self-editing tension so I can get going and actually put words to paper. Then again, once I drunk a glass of wine and wrote nothing but a list of names I thought sounded funny when I tried to do Write or Die, so...yeah, it doesn't always work.

Chances of me posting "AND THEN THEY FUCKED" as a legitimate ending to a story when sober: 0

Chances of me posting "AND THEN THEY FUCKED" as a legitimate ending to a story when drunk: VERY HIGH

Drinkin' makes me a lot less concerned about quality control, but it's usually not something I do when I'm alone and trying to concentrate on plot and dialogue. It just makes me feel better about what I've written later. XD

I actually feel a bit silly when I look at what I've written while drunk - often it's got so many phrase repetitions in it, I don't even know how they got in it. But it does sort of...clear out all the detritus and anxiety in there, and lets me get started. Of course, sometimes what I get started on is nonsense, so.

I write really well under any sort influence. Apparently all I need is to put up a sufficient buffer between myself and reality. It can be as simple as a cup of coffee, staying up too late, accidentally doubling up my adderall, eating nothing but a pile of sugar and then sitting alone in the middle of a busy food court (I got some really ridiculous tentacle porn from that one, lemme tell you).

stunt_muppet

So all I really need to do to finish Nano is get insanely high.

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

post necromancy (because you seem interesting enough to stalk)

July