It's what happens when you combine coffee, a laptop, and a writer. TAPTAPTAPTAPTAP ka-CHING!
Oh wait. You kids are too young to remember the sound a carriage return makes.
That's not writing. That's typing.
-- Truman Capote, commenting on Jack Kerouac's manic writing style
If you've ever been under the influence of an espresso buzz, you know it feels like bees buzzing between your ears. The intelligence level drops down to insect level, but - damn! - you feel STRONG! And the words just come blathering out. Shitty first drafts. Logorrhea.
Ever stayed up all night pounding badly made coffee while knocking out a meaningless paper for the English dept's humanities class? Yeah, like that. It's you, the computer, and that running word count, baybee. Just get me to 2000 words and then I'm done!
A mathematician is a device that turns coffee into theorems.
-- Pal Erdös, Hungarian mathematician
Erdös highly recommended the use of stimulants. He felt coffee kept him creative.
That patron saint of drug use and writing, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, said stimulants kept him focussed.
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
His magnum opus, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was written in one long multi-day cocaine fueled rager, an epic writing session with epic success. Sometimes, these things really do work.
Late Credits
- Apparently writer Anne Lamott was the originator of the phrase "shitty first draft." That, or an early and enthusiastic practitioner.
- Thank you, Anonymous Reviewer #2, for the correct spelling of Anne Lamott.