Alcohol and creative writing

ALCOHOL AND CREATIVE WRITING A friend who was writing a thesis asked me for a commentary on the above take on writing. I’m not sure whether I should be gratified or alarmed with what I came up with. I’ll leave you to be the judges. I have written seven books over the last eight years, largely in France, where I rocketed my cholesterol with cheese and bombed my liver with wine, so I might have been regarded as a full time writer and part time inebriate.

Even works of fiction require a huge amount of research and there are times when writing a book can be a fairly pedestrian affair, beginning with the germ of an idea and that terrifying blank page, which is set to be re-written so many times. More often than not, things begin with setting the time, place, characters and circumstances that will move forward as the story unfolds. It is often a journey of discovery for the author as well since he or she develops the plot ‘en route’. And that is where the magic begins to happen. The twist and turns that come to mind over the following months can owe as much to wine as anything else. I would spend all day labouring on the keyboard before taking my notebook and a bottle of wine out to the patio, to consider what I had written and wait for the flights of fancy. It was a mind broadening experience, in which ideas would leap out; often bizarre and sometimes aberrational, but the alcohol was often a launch pad. Once an idea was accepted I would move forward, making the ridiculous become credible. The alcohol would set my imagination free and did away with the need for accurate spelling or grammar. Those were dealt with the next day, when I turned those ideas into literature.

I remember eating alone at a restaurant in Egypt when I was halfway through the second volume of my trilogy, (my wife had succumbed to some of the local pathogens). Over the first glass of wine I wondered what to do with my main character, while he was on holiday in Florida. This man had a mental connectivity with children who needed help and the ‘germ’ of an idea came with the prospect of him confronting a parent in Disneyworld, mistakenly, it seemed, because the abused child would not be the girl my character addressed, but her brother who was at home, with the stepfather. She would have been forced to witness the beatings. My main character would then be pinned against the wall by her natural father who happened to be a six foot six hell’s angel.

At last, barely halfway into my second glass I went ‘off piste’, (yes, that is spelt correctly), with a story line that became exciting, and thrilling, with a measure of humour and pathos. I couldn’t write quickly enough. The thing unfolded at an incredible pace and yet I was only on my fourth glass, or was it the fifth? (it was all-inclusive after all). I borrowed an order pad from a waiter and ploughed on. I was still scribbling furiously three hours later, when the waiter asked me somewhat timidly, if I was a restaurant critic. I assured him that I wasn’t, so he poured me another glass of wine. I could have gone on for longer but my writing had become illegible and I was startled to find that the place was empty. Not only had I thought of a truly original idea, but I had mapped out the last half of the book, with a thrilling storyline that was littered with wonderful episodes, characters and sub plots. More importantly, I could read my writing the next morning, or most of it anyway. I do not consider myself to be an alcoholic, but there are times when my writing might have been alcohol dependent.

After all, I’m not alone. Ernest Hemingway could and did drink most men under the table.