A lot of my writer pals use various stimuli to kick-start (or maintain) the writing process. Some just concentrate and the magic flows easily. But a lot of the writers I have met drink before and during the writing work. Everything from wine to to beer to whiskey. I've tried drinking alcohol to get the engine sparked, but it just has never worked for me.
What I do consume when I working on a story or a novel is coffee. Not tons of it. But I will go through two or three cups of hot coffee when I write in the afternoon to early evening. It keeps me sharp and helps prod my imagination.
I once read a brief biography of a writer who would retreat to his office on a Friday with a percolator and write and consume vast amounts of coffee until emerging a few days later with a completed novel. Forgive me, but I have forgotten the writer. I want to say he was a Frenchman, but the thing that struck me most was holing up in the room with gallons of coffee and not quitting until the book was ready. (I've read that the late George Simenon similarly survived on coffee as he produced each chapter of his novels.)
And don't laugh. Some writers can do things like churn out an entire
pulp novel over the course of a weekend. The late Lester Dent was famous
for that. He'd begin a book on Friday afternoon and by Monday morning
there it would be: a 60,000-word novel of crime or fantasy or cowboys
& Indians.
There was another guy I read about: he had to have sex with a woman every day to inspire his muse. His wife got tired of his demands, but not for the book contracts. So she helped him arrange the arrival of one prostitute or another every day to fire his mojo. Again, I'm terrible about recalling the stories but not the subjects, so don't ask me who this cat was.
So, here I sit. My coffee is steaming in its insulated container. The wordprocessor is open and working. And so am I.
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| "Workworkworkwork." |
It's hard to say what makes a professional writer. One can go by the traditional definition created by various writers organizations which state things such as a certain number of short story sales at a certain level of pay. For some reason, many of them claim that five cents per word is the cut-off point to be considered a pro sale. And further state that one needs three such sales of that level (or greater) to be considered a professional writer.
If so, I achieved that relatively soon after deciding to tackle the writing business in a serious manner. But it took many years before I earned any money at all that made a difference in the household budget. And to date the most I've ever made from writing was less than any of my regular day jobs.
And that's the thing--all of my professional life as a writer I have had to hold down a regular job in addition to selling my fiction. I've sold short stories, comic book scripts, reviews, and novels. And I've never been able to quit whatever paying job I have held so that I could write full time. It's just never been in the cards.
Generally, I've never had a hard time finding the leisure moments to work my second job of crafting fiction. I could always come home, shower, eat a meal, and then tackle the day's quota of words. But now I'm getting old. I'll be 55 soon, and I have to admit that's old for a laborer. And that's what I do to pay for the roof over our heads and the food on our table and the clothes on our backs--I work as a physical laborer.
And I ain't a kid any more. In earlier times I could shrug off the fatigue and get cracking on my short stories and comic scripts and novels. Now I find it more and more difficult to do that when I get home. My job is harder and my body is slowing down. My joints ache and my muscles hurt and by Jove I'm just freaking bushed when I get home. These days, I'm lucky if I can kick in a few hundred words before my eyelids want to close for the night and I have to head off to bed.
Oh, well. It's never been an easy thing to do. Many times I wanted to give up, but I just kept plugging along. It's a tiring, private task, but I haven't given in to the bad guys yet.
Where's my coffee cup?
