The Jaded Writer

Though I haven't been doing a lot of actual writing lately, I've been thinking a lot about writing, and that has to count for something. As a soccer coach once informed me, the mental game is 90 percent of the whole thing. So, by the standard of sports clichés, I'm practically all the way there. The tangible evidence of this writing habit of mine comes in the form of one half-written coming-of-age novel, one fleshed out sketch of a dystopian end-of-the-world type novel, and one nearly complete but as-of-yet unedited satirical memoir. There are also the thousands of scraps of paper that are currently falling out from my desk drawers into my lap. They contain scribbled turns of phrases in blue and black (and sometimes pink!) ink that I wrote on bits of newspaper and backs of programs as a reminder of some intriguing story idea or polysyllabic word that I thought sounded fancy. With all this inspiration literally spilling out around me, what more could a fledgling writer possibly need in order to produce that dream of the next great American novel?

The answer, my friends, is whiskey. As a housewarming gift, my friend Tyler bought a bottle of Johhnie Walker Red. Being more of a connoisseur of the Trader Joe's 2010 Charles Shaw variety, I recognized that I may not encounter such a thing anytime again in my near future. So, upon receiving the gift, I promptly hid it from the other house guests in a tall, out-of-reach cupboard behind a container of glow sticks and some unused plastic plates. While I may not have earned the "shares well with others" sticker that day, I had big plans for that Johnnie Red, things far grander than simply being used as shots before the customary Saturday night excursion to the local chinese food restaurant slash top-40 dance club.

For the record, I neither condone nor condemn drinking. Alcohol, when used responsibly, can be a fun, recreational, and (let me emphasize) social undertaking, especially when it comes in the form of five colorful straws inside a dragon-painted scorpion bowl at the aforementioned "restaurant." But with this bottle of Mr. Walker, I wanted it to be different. More meaningful. Less Bieber lyrics, more Brontë prose. Like many other great writers before me, I decided that whiskey was going to help get me there.

In college, my friend Lori convinced me that whiskey and water was the drink of choice of college students, hardened alcoholics, and fledgling writers alike.

"The water hydrates you, and you still get drunk," she told me. Her logic was sound. My hangover-free Sunday mornings were pleasant. Everyone won.

Then there's Faulkner, who was quoted as saying, "the tools I need for my work are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey." What kind of young writer goes against nobel-prize winning American novel-writing William Faulkner? I may be young, but I'm not stupid. 

But, you might ask yourself, aren't you just romanticizing hard alcohol because you are a 23-year old with too many hopes and dreams and not enough real world practicality to know that you shouldn't be drinking alcohol by yourself on some random Tuesday night? To which I would reply: absolutely. Sure, whiskey is not always unicorns and rainbows, but everyone deludes themselves in some form or other. It's like when teenage girls layer on dark eyeliner to make themselves feel like they look older, or when one of my ex-boyfriends used to put on dress shirts when he had to write a final paper. Everyone subscribes to different ways of thinking that help them to transform who they are into who they want to be. For me, a glass of whiskey conjures up the vision of hunkering down over a pad of paper on a snowy wintery night, a drink on the table in front of me, a fireplace at my back, and the entire night free to pretend to be a hardened, wizened, jaded writer exploring the world through words and letting my inner muse wander where she may. Being presented with a bottle of whiskey moved these visions from the back of my mind to my kitchen table.

So thank you, Tyler, for enabling and abetting my writing habit through whiskey. One day, you just may have a book dedication aimed at you in the form of cryptic inside jokes. I'll just have to drink more whiskey to become clever enough to think of something first. And before that, actually finish a novel. But first things first.