Write Away

i used to joke about how i had to drink because i was a writer. “i don’t like to drink,” i’d laugh, “but it’s part of the job description.”

More seriously, i was scared to death that when i stopped drinking, i’d stop writing. That somehow my ideas came from a dream machine fueled by alcohol, that my creativity was a flame fanned by the fumes of booze, that my talent was a spirit watered by spirits and that when i went dry so would the well that held the ink that spelled my destiny.

Like with everything else, i could not have been more wrong. (That’s what i get for trying to think and why i’m definitely giving thinking up indefinitely.)

Apparently alcohol was a wet blanket that smothered my thoughts, ideas, feelings, ideas and inspiration. When i was in college, i used to stay up until 4AM caressing the keys of an Apple IIe with all the lights out except the green glow of the words spilling across the screen.

In the last few years, i wondered what happened to that all consuming passion to write, that need to write that kept me up all night and now i know it didn’t go anywhere. It’s been here below the surface the entire time but the problem is that “below the surface” is the first place to go under when the flood waters flow. i was literally drowning my happiness with alcohol.

It is now 1:42AM and i’m going to bed because i have a wife i want to share my life with but i’m buzzing write now with the  sheer joy of playing with these words.