It’s fair to wonder how much our writing practices and prewriting rituals are bullshit—just like it’s safe practice to chickety check ourselves before we keep making the same bad choices into habits in life. I recently attended a writing workshop where a lecture was given on a writer’s life outside of writing—a topic I had not expected. Nor did I expect to take as much away from it as, say, a craft discussion on characterization. And yet, things turned in the direction of a writer’s personal character, an often-overlooked concern which turned out to be a fantastic conversation starter.

The list of great artists who lived too fast and died too young is entirely too long, but so, too, are many of their contributions to literature undeniable. Heck, the stereotype in modern times is that writers are alcoholics. But it has nothing to do with being a writer. It has to do with being a human. Some people like to drink; some people are immoderate in what they do. This is not an excuse so much as it is the fact of the matter, a balancing act which is or isn’t observed by any given person in anything they do.

Early in the lecture, we were asked to consider our daily routines, including our prewriting rituals. So many great points were made, so many great questions asked, like: What do you do to start the day? Do you exercise? Do you drink water when you write, or only coffee? Or is alcohol your creative lubricant? Do you smoke? How’s your posture?

For example, hunching over a desk and racking one’s brain for hours on end isn’t exactly healthy. We all know the general rule regarding getting up to stretch our legs from time to time, but the point was made that this act of getting up and walking around isn’t so much to break any mental monotony as it is to render better blood flow, thereby benefitting the brain physically.

As with any endeavor, inclusion of the mind, the body, and the spirit permits the best results. This I knew, of course, but—being human—knowing something and acting on that knowledge are two different animals. The tendency is to neglect one or more of our faculties in favor of another. In this way, jobs which require physical repetition often become mentally numbing or spiritually distressing. Conversely, mental or spiritual endeavors tend to require less of us physically, and thereby the tendency for bodily neglect.

There was a moment of silence during which time we were asked to physically write down our day-to-day activities, making note of instances which favored the mind over the body or the body over the spirit, etc. The exercise recalled something I saw a while back, a similar exercise Hunter S. Thompson once famously performed—surely to the chagrin of many who hold his work in high esteem. I can’t imagine what Thompson’s motives were for outlining his typical day to day; certainly, it was not to discern instances where more healthier decisions could be made, his routine being basically a formulaic drug and alcohol regimen. Perhaps, by then, his mind was slipping, and he physically required this little reminder of how he did what he did so well. But the question stands: can effective art be made without killing ourselves? I must believe it can be. 

The daily rallying of my bones and body begins with a hot, hot shower, then oatmeal and toast, sometimes a whole pitcher of water to combat the lingering effects of the night before (maybe some stereotypes are right), followed by coffee and a cigarette somewhere with a view, the rest of the day (when I’m not working) devoted to my mind and spirt—which is to say, writing. Often I do stretches bordering on yoga, but I don’t exercise as I should. I know it. I’m active—on my feet and walking around all day at work, kayaking or hiking on my time off—but my cardio suffers. How quickly I become short of breath. Not only do I still smoke, but—as this lecture pointed out to me—I spend entirely too much time hunched over my computer desk. And I drink every few days or so. I used to think I had to have a strong buzz to channel my best writing—a feeling undoubtedly due to the fact that, back then, I was only just finding my voice. Not to mention I imagined traces of genius in my pizzled ramblings, as if I was fulfilling my cosmic role, channeling the Universe.

As Stephen King suggests, such thinking is only a crutch. We’ll only become dependent on it. Thankfully, I saw this for what it was. These days, I can’t even have a drink when I intend to write. In this regard and many others, I’ve already begun to better myself and my work.

My process has always been one of balancing energies: after days, weeks, or—God willing—months of creative torrent, a period of drought tends to follow, and what I do with this time seems to determine how long it will last. But for so long, I couldn’t let it be; when the words weren’t flowing, I railed against the drought, seemingly unable to move on to other things. It took a long time for me to learn to let things be, to let my batteries recharge, so to speak. And even after discovering this—and only during periods when I wasn’t regularly writing—only then did I tend to be more grounded, health-conscious, and sociable. Seemingly freed of my work, only then would I turn outward, breaking my routines, seeking out inspiration in any form.

The real trick is to bring this sense of being present into our writing lives and to shed the insecurities associated with change. That was basically the thesis of the lecture—that betterment must never cease, even if it means changing something we perhaps don’t want to change. We must put our needs ahead of our wants, a reconciliation almost always easier said than done. The older I get, the more this makes sense to me and the more natural it becomes. Inspiration comes and goes. When it’s present, there are no bounds; when it’s gone, it isn’t gone forever, irretrievable as it may seem.

The same could be said about, well, anything. But seeing this, more specifically, acting on it, takes effort. Effort—such a hard pill to swallow. But not with plenty of water.

A whole pitcher before me, now, sweating on the table as I sweat and write these words which are my own and not God’s or the Universe’s or Vice’s. It all comes pouring out.