Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work: Altered States

Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “Write drunk, edit sober.” And I suspect throughout history, a goodly percentage of writers have never strayed far from some sort of hooch, firewater, or cobra piss.

Understandable I suppose because a few glasses of vino can shut up our Internal Editor — “You suck! Stop writing! What the hell are you thinking!” Glug, glug — “Shove off, you bloody dog wanker!”

And as the movie Sideways notes in its very title, the ability of alcohol or some other stimulant to alter our state, can cause us to see our stories in a different — and hopefully — fortuitous perspective.

Or as Mark Twain put it so eloquently: “Write drunk. Edit sober.”

Of course, one can overdo it. None other than the great writer William Faulkner famously almost died of alcohol poisoning during his tempestuous term in Hollywood. Indeed, you can go here and see a list of the “Top 10 Drunk American Writers,” including such luminaries as Raymond Chandler, Ernest Hemingway, and the aforementioned Faulkner.

Nevertheless for those writers who may tend to have a hard time freeing up the mind and getting in touch with The Creative, perhaps the occasional wee dram of giggle juice can provide a helpful boost to one’s writing output.

Note: For those disinclined to imbibe, there are more natural ways to alter one’s state, such as meditation, running, and writing in the nude. Hey, whatever works!

So if you’re stuck on a story or feeling like your creativity can use a jolt to get the juices flowing — perhaps let the juice flow — of the fermented kind!

This has been another edition of Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work.