

Always write under the influence - dsowers
https://medium.com/writers-on-writing/1f6bcb600140

======
clarkm
I'm finding it increasingly difficult to balance sentiments like this with the
fact that there's no real way to retract anything on the internet. The submit
button might as well read "set in stone" or "permanently etch into your life
history". Once you hit it and let the content sit, it will be scraped up by
google, archive.org, the NSA, and god knows who else. And you can't take it
back.

But it's fun reading edgy, not-so-sober content. It's fun writing it too.
Though since everything is permanent, the line of acceptability is different.
You can't make private, off the cuff remarks online without adding them to
your permanent record. So wherever the line is, you _really_ don't want to
cross it. I guess there's a Ballmer Peak for everything.

~~~
fragsworth
Maybe write it while you're drugged, and edit it while you're sober.

------
justinator
Writing boozed up is one very valid way of writing. But, it's not the only
way.

For someone to be so persistent at the former opinion is simply because it's a
sensational stance, and for some reason that makes the author feel more
interesting, and HN seems to love this sort of sensationalism. The pattern is
this: take a simplified viewpoint and extrapolate on it.

If you need a drug to perform at your best, it's called a dependency. A
crutch. If you're weak at something, don't mask it, work towards making
yourself stronger, not just allowing yourself to think you're stronger. Lots
of people under lots of different chemicals, think what they're doing is
incredible, but only when they're still under the influence. If you need
something to loosen up to start, fine - I encourage you to figure out how to
attain that loosening without the drug. Save you some money, too.

I love me some drug-addled writers: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Hemingway (as the
author also shares), Kesey, Irvine Welsh, Genet. The list is long. What these
figures have in common is not that they all did incredible amounts of drugs,
what they have in common is they all had a strong desire to write. To work
hard. You can be an addict and work hard - the two are not mutually exclusive,
but they're also not dependent on one-another.

Hemingway is such a weird example - Kerouac was also drunk most of the time,
and the guy couldn't finish a sentence. Is one style better than the other?
Well, no - it's art baby, trying to critique it isn't as easy as you're
writing portends it to be. "Booze made Hemingway get to the point", is a fine
hypothesis - and maybe you're right, but it could make someone else forget
where the period is located on their keyboard. Maybe writing in a war zone
made Hemingway want to get to the point. Maybe that same thing made him want
to drink.

You know who else were good writers? Thoreau. Emerson. Antoine de Saint-
Exupéry. Pick your own list, from your own bookshelf. Even with your half-
dozen published books: Mr Sowers, you are no Emerson. Imitation Is Suicide.

------
keithpeter
_The Thirsty Muse: Alcohol and the American Writer_ by Tom Dardis. Recommended
reading for those who agree with the original author.

We should remember that Bukowski and Dr Thompson, both of whom boast of
writing under the influence, had editors, and published for money, which
implies a _publisher_ taking legal consequences. Dr Thompson has pointed out
that a lot of his reported consumption was fictional [1]. Bukowski liked to
shock [2].

[1] [http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/619/the-art-of-
jour...](http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/619/the-art-of-journalism-
no-1-hunter-s-thompson)

[2]
[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/03/14/050314crbo_books](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/03/14/050314crbo_books)

It is also worth pointing out that both of my examples _walked the walk_ in a
way that perhaps bloggers who write computer programs may be advised to avoid.

------
mbrock
Or learn to unsober without chemicals!

