I have a secret for my writing that isn’t something I generally discuss. Alcohol.
The drunk writer is as much a stereotype as the starving, bohemian artist. And for me, drunk doesn’t work. When I drink too much, my typing suffers dramatically, as does my judgement – though that should be no surprise. A bottle of beer too many, and my writing suffers.
But a couple of glasses of red wine? Yeah, that’ll kick the heck out of any writer’s block. The stuff that I write after some wine isn’t uniformly good, but that’s generally not the point. For me, it’s getting the writing on the page. Even if I start with nothing, after some alcohol something will appear on that page. If it’s a project on which I’ve already worked or planned, I can get 1,000 or even 2,000 usable words down after a couple of hours.
To be honest, I generally don’t turn to alcohol for my writing these days. What usually happens is that I’ve had a glass of wine or a bottle of beer at dinner, then another after, and once the dishes are done I’m at the keyboard banging away.
It’s a crutch, sure, and it’s not something I am proud of, but it is a tool I can and have used.
I also like wine and beer, so there’s that.