Another thing I found really helps...green tea. It's amazing, really.

I always drink Lucozade, whenever I'm planning a real heavy writing session! Sports literati!

JB

(In accent of John Barnes) "Lucozade Sport, I drink it because it's in tune with my body fluids...and helps me get that novel written." :-)

Lol. It really works though. It stimulates the mind and is cheaper and healthier than cocaine!

There. That would be my advertising jingle should Lucozade ever ask me to represent them.

JB

I shall listen out for you, JB. You could start a whole new trend.

Cheers

John

Has anyone written on cocaine? I wonder whether drug use would be better at the editing stage rather than the writing stage? Help you see things from a different angle?

I've read on different drugs since I was 19 or so. Once tackled parts of Love on the Dole (Walter Greenwood)on mescaline. Great experience. The people in a crowd scene got off the page and walked around disguised as gerunds and stuff. Yo!

The thing is, if you take a lot of drugs, you can't really wait around until you're straight to write - or edti ... shit, edit.

Keep it real, like David Cameron.

Joe

<Added>

Actually, I've read on different drugs since much younger than 19, now I come to think of it. My mother used to keep me in a zombie state with Benelyn (in giant bottles with soup-spoon portions in those days) - and if I remember right (doubtful), I read Paradise Lost all the way through when I was off school 'under the influence'. Chronic bronchitis was the excuse.

Cheers!

Joe (who has had 'a few gless the nicht a'ready', as his Glaswegian brother used to say before his heart gave out)

That mescaline experience sounds way out - where can I buy some? (joke) I think I'd be really freaked out if my characters came alive off the page disguised as gerunds. But then again, isn't that what's meant to happen? I've heard of writers who speak to their characters and imagine that they're real. Do we have to be schizophrenics?

I don't think schizophrenia is compulsory. But, then again... I am certainly familiar with my characters hijacking the story though. That can be very frustrating, especially if you working up to a big finish and they've all cleared off down the pub

John