Your drug of choice?

Ear defenders. I'm a single mum with two kids and a full time job and I'm also trying to study for a qualification in my spare time as well. I don't get much time to write and my kids are old enough to be left to themselves for an hour or two and be trusted not to cause too much havoc so I'll sit there with the ear defenders on and get on with some writing and/or studying.

Coffee in the morning. That gets me thinking critically and analytically and making sure the plot is on target.

If I need the word count, wine in the afternoon. I do feel that words flow more easily, like suddenly language is different in my brain, when I have a glass of wine.

Jogging ALWAYS helps--clears out the corner I've painted myself into and always gives me a piece of dialog or something that makes a scene 1% better. I'll take it.

I edit heavily, so I don't mind that my writing is sort of uneven in the first draft.

Dan Rhys said:

My drug is thinking about attractive women...it's fun to build stories around them (as both of my novels do); they help with my creativity, and I like embedding them with qualities that I wish I could find in a real-life woman but never do.

Click to expand...

This has really stayed with me since you posted it, Dan. I can't quite figure out if you are sincere or not. I sort-of think you are... trolling? No offense, but are you trolling? I mean, if I said that thinking about the perfect idealized man got my juices going, and how sad it is that that man doesn't exist, ... would you be like, "Oh, yeah. I totally get that."

And, I mean, what would my husband think? (For the record, he's the perfect man.)

Are you married? I think you must be single. If you're married, (?) does your wife know you feel this way?

Coffee and nicotine, trying to cut back on the second one but I'm sure you all know how that is going.

I smoke a respectable amount of weed, but I have enough trouble keeping focused and managing my thoughts into something comprehensible when dead sober, so the 420 write seshs just don't work for me. I may have done some editing lightly toasted in the past, but not often enough to make that my excuse for slapdash editing.

Dan Rhys said:

My drug is thinking about attractive women...it's fun to build stories around them (as both of my novels do); they help with my creativity, and I like embedding them with qualities that I wish I could find in a real-life woman but never do.

Click to expand...

I do this, but with attractive men. Nothing motivates me like falling head-over-heels for my male protagonist. I started a WIP quite some time ago, and while I've set it aside for now because life is just not allowing me to focus on writing at the moment, I still think about my beloved character crush and promise that I'll get back to him some day.

Count me in as a music junkie too. I have a "soundtrack" for my WIP as well as just general inspirational music. Usually when I notice the words aren't flowing, I realize I haven't been listening to music. Sometimes I have to listen to it to get inspired and then need quiet to write. Other times I need the music playing to write.

I guess the other thing is reading. Unfortunately, I haven't been reading as much as I should. When I'm reading voraciously, I often find writing a whole lot easier.

Chocolate.

But not too much. And it is very, very easy for me to eat too much chocolate.

The caffeine in it is just a bonus.

I worked as a design engineer in Silicon Valley for 30+ years (retired early... thank you Cisco Systems stock).
That industry ran on coffee... in fact, if imports of coffee beans were ever blocked by a foreign power most of the workers would fall into a coma. Hmm, could be an interesting plot for a horror book... Night of the Zombie Engineers?

Well, if we're talking actual drugs, then here's some combinations that might yield interesting results once or twice and then never again: weed+LSD or shrooms; cocaine (Stephen King'll tell ya lol); cocaine+weed; yep that's it. Maybe a drink or two, but you get sluggish with too much. Meditation is a shortcut to any positive effect you want out of drugs.

But the actual drug is your sober mind. Just think of your dreams, how wild they'll get. Don't let your mind trick you into thinking what you want is out there, because all of life's wonder is kept inside you. It just takes an insistence upon mental autonomy. Write for hours at a time in total or near silence and you'll begin to dream awake in a way, it's awesome. Good luck buddy, don't be afraid to experiment with everything.

Sleep is a big one for me. If I don't sleep well, everything suffers, and writing my suffesr bigly.

I love a song or two before I start writing. Something with a strong tempo, complex harmony, and positive message can help me get pumped for writing. But during writing, music with words distracts me. Silence, blessed silence, is what helps me actually write.

Diet Coke, admittedly not so healthy, is what I rely on for mental alertness.

Currently, I have no "drug" to motivate me. I'm going to experiment with listening to some things later today. It won't be music, though. I don't care much for what passes for talent these days, nor will it be classic rock. While I love that genre, it's music to be listened to, so it becomes too distracting. It's good for mindless work when you want to be distracted, but not for writing.

I've written to the sound of audiobooks in the past. Maybe it's the same kind of stimulation some people get from writing in a coffee shop. Somehow, just hearing a speaking voice seems to help generate ideas, although when you go back and read what you wrote, most of it is gibberish--for me, anyway.

With all the internet radio and YouTube options, there must be something that will motivate me to write.

I listen to music (mostly instrumental) that helps set the scene I am working within. I try to immerse myself in the world I have built as much as I can. Music moves mountains for me in this regard.

A drug that has chosen me is showering. I have somehow come up with many grand ideas while washing my body. I am not joking.

There's a really specific album I listen to to get me in the mood: Dirt, by Alice in Chains. It's grimy and depressive and the song Angry Chair just gets me into the gothic headspace I need. It helps that I try to write stories as apathetic and rotting as possible. Other music is fine but nothing is as consistently inspiring as that.

When we write, we use our brains. When we use certain drugs, we damage our brains. Even if those drugs spawn crazy and wild ideas in the present, they will only work against us in the long run by slowly degrading our mental capacity.

Not that I really expect to change anyone's mind on the topic. I just find the idea of using harmful substances as a writing tool to be highly distasteful.

As for drugs in a figurative sense, I'm constantly surprised by how much better I feel after getting outside. No matter how many times I do it, I somehow always forget how much it helps. Running, in particular, has been giving me space to think lately.

Emotional anime music takes my mind on a roller coaster of emotions, which sometimes morph into random story ideas as I listen.

Also, browsing random photography and artwork (again, of the anime variety) can help me come up with ideas for characters and settings.

Classical music helps me concentrate, although depending what mood I'm in silence might be better.
I find rock and heavy metal very disruptive to the though process.
Personally I wouldn't recommend drugs, but that's mainly because once you've seen people loose limbs and digits while high you figure they just might not be the great idea that the world in general seems to believe they are, people don't have great ideas when they are high, they just loose their inhibitions telling them that they are having bad ideas.
I've also found when I'm really annoyed I write well, but that might just be me.

SwallowFeather said:

Sleep.

I get enough sleep, I write well. I don't, I write crap that needs to be revised later on a day when I did get enough sleep, thus creating more work for me to do.

Click to expand...

Too true! Sleeping resolves so much mental fatigue/writer's block/etc for me.

I have over 80 playlists with 10 hours each of classical music. I'm still expanding and working with composers I haven't heard of. It makes writing so much easier and, since I'm starting to try and write by hand, it provides me entertainment and mental food for when my hand cramps up and gets tired.

Also, caffeine is my drug of choice. I LOVE tea. Can't get enough of it. The occasional soda is good too, but only half a can with plenty of ice to maximize flavour and ensure I'm not taking in too much sucrose.

I can't do any other substances and write. Impossible for me. Comes out as utter trite garbage! :X