Still Working!

It's raining in New York right now, as it has been all week. Fall seems more audacious than usual this year, not tip toeing around summer like it usually does but rather brazenly showing its face in full daylight. I can't believe that summer's nearing its end, although when I think about these past few months it's no surprise. Me and everyone I know unconsciously become frantically busy during the summertime. I often translate Belle and Sebastian's song "Summer Wasting" to "Summer Wasted."
"I spent the summer wasted/the time was passed so easily...Seven years of river walkways/seven weeks of staying up all night...." seems aptly suited for drinking as well as pleasantly idling away the hours.

I've been thinking lately of the image of the alcoholic writer. Personally, I find alcohol inhibits my writing process. I usually can't write if I've had a sip of alcohol. To me having a drink initiates relaxation and stimulates conversation, taking my words from paper into the auditory realm. What's more, I find it difficult to write without an absolutely clear state of mind. I can't be tired, or hungover. I have a variety of rituals to prepare myself for writing: most involve either a cup of coffee, or a nap. I often take my computer with me to bed, nap, and write upon awakening. Something about the lingering of the submergence into the unconscious makes writing upon waking more vivid and cogent than otherwise.

Alcoholism seems to be the occupational hazard of being a writer. A myriad of reasons as to why present themselves. Personality type coinciding with career choice, the image of the failing writer drinking away his or her worries, the thirst for life. The idea of destroying to create. More on this later.

One other thing I've been thinking about is how, while I enjoy the ritual and discipline of working steadily on one project, I miss the creative randomness of stream of consciousness, for-no-one-in-particular, writing. Yesterday my boyfriend and I drew a picture together, where I would draw a line or shape, then he would. As we drew a story unfolded, which I more or less transcribed and will copy and paste here for your boredom or reading pleasure:

The birthday candle went off in his brain. “I”m sad,” was the idea that it had.
"Why are you sad?" The man, or possibly somebody else, asked him.
"I'm sad because I want to go swimming," he replied.
He had a backpack. He had a zipper on the backpack that allowed him to retrieve his belongings. He had two flippers, and one snorkel. He had a reptile-tie. A Reptie. He had a baby alligator eating a book in the tears the sad man cried from not being able to go swimming. Not crocodile tears, sad man tears. That the alligator swam in. The alligator, not the crocodile. A boat sailed in the tear water. A sailor looked on while a smiling man swam in the waves and basked in the flames of the thoughts. And above it all stood a sparkling crooked jewel.
The man had a great deal on his mind. He had a scale, in fact, perched on top of his head. Half the scale was his nose. The other half held the backpack and fins. “Follow Your Nose,” was the name of the scale. The game was to Be Responsible For Your Own Happiness.
"We can't make him happy," the man, or possibly somebody else, said to him.
The paradox was that he wanted to go swimming but couldn't until he was sad that he couldn't go swimming and cried enough tears to go swimming in.
The birthday candle was obvious, because he was born before the time of lightbulbs and so had to have a birthday candle go off. It was also obvious that it was his birthday, because he was just created, and nobody had bought him presents even though he had all this nice stuff. What's more, we had eaten his cake.
A snake asked him why he was sad and the forked tongue looked like the mouth on the pyramid. If only the man knew his backpack was on the other side of the pyramid. If only he could speak Pyramid.
Meanwhile, the man swam and the other happy man looked on. The baby alligator from the dreams ate the book. It was all highly symbolic.

Right now I'm reading "On Becoming a Novelist," by John Gardner, per the suggestion of my professor.