write drunk, edit sober

A few months ago, I came across the quote "write drunk, edit sober" and decided to give it a try. I thought it would create some great blog entries where I could display both the drunken piece and the finished product to show how much stories transform during the revision process. I tried to do this a grand total of three times before coming to the conclusion that I am awful at it.

Try #1:

I started drinking after dinner and only managed to write this sentence before it was 3 in the morning. Then I woke Nick up and told him that drunk writing was really hard over and over again until he made me go to bed.

" We started dTING ON THE DAY THE TITANIC SANK. I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE TAKEN THAT AS A SIGN.

s"

Try #2:

Then on my second try, all I could think about was how unpleasant it was the first time.

" My first attempt at drunk writing was difficult. I was up to lte and rather thn writing, I woke Nick up at 3 in the morning to rell him hosw difficult it was to write drun over and over until eh put me to bed

sMy eyes are heavy and  fell like Im;s goin to fall asleep."

Try #3:

For the third try, Nick tried to inspire me by setting up a print of a cat wearing a ruff that was in Mark Twain's home. This cat made an appearance in every bed time story Twain told his daughters.

" NIck placed the print of the cat in the ruff on the T.V stand along with a bag of Beggin; Strips and his iPhonr and told me to write anout each object in one story. The cat’s eyes stared at me. I didn’t know what t d do with them. All it made me do was thin k about mu few times with cats. My Aunti had cats hat I used to love until one day it sunk it’s claws into m ylegs when we took a photo. In my family, my brothers and I were deemed old enough to have pets when we were ten.  AAs my birthday aopriached, I was set in e a calico cat, My parernts prepared for this despite the fact they were both dog peopke and bout cat suppliesl Then a few days beforem y birthday, I decided that I wantd a dog. Then I got a dog, and I t was awesome. My bes t friend did not like odhs until she met my dig, sena. She is still a cat person but it’ is nice to know tha the first dog she ever likd was Seana"

It's pretty obvious that these are just drunken ramblings and no amount of editing can save them. When I brought up my failure at this writing technique with my friend Corrie, she pointed out that the quote most likely came from an alcoholic who needed to be drunk just to function like a normal person.

This made me feel better. After all, if I have to fail at something, I'm glad it's alcoholism. 






much love,
hedgie