TC's IOP Fri 17th Oct

That lot couldn't write their name let alone the wash of brilliant stuff that comes on here. Just listening to them trying to do the simple crossword is painful. Ah, the sins of alcohol!

I can't write under the influence of anything anymore! Given up tobacco, wine puts me into a fuzzy haze and cannabis just blows me away completely now. Disgraceful abstemiousness. Kerouac was a whiskey and speed man: a novel in two weeks! Mind you some people would argue that that is perfectly clear from reading his stuff.

And Bukowski took/drank anything he could get hold of - but I suspect that it's horses for courses. Some people need a substance to unlock their imaginations whilst others are far too fertile in any case.

"...I don't think prose writers get pissed before scratching out the next chapter..." Curious, I've always had precisely the opposite impression, that writers (and especially American writers) are invariably soaks.

I'm curious about this... do most of you write sober? I usually have a couple of drinks before sitting down to a good session, and strong coffee is more or less essential. I also keep a hipflask of whisky next to my computer, for when inspiration runs dry.

No stimulants required anymore. I'm free!!! But it does help if I'm in a good mood.

I like to work with a full bladder or erection, something pressing to make you get on with the story. Otherwise it's a grocers' orgy.

Oh dear - I tend to drink and party and live, which is totally different to the act of writing. Writing is when I am in isolation, usually in the darkness of night, in some strange love-hate relationship with the computer - alcohol added to this intensity would, I fear, cause a breakdown... cranberry juice, tea (usually earl grey), and the odd interjection of saliva from the neglected dog are the only extra substances needed.

If I haven't been drinking when the urge takes me to write then I write sober, if I have, then I don't. The worrying thing is it doesn't seem to make any difference.