“Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
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“Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
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Re: “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
#2I had always heard this used as kind of a metaphor: do whatever the hell you want to in writing, follow every thread, wander all over the place, believe your own bullshit, and just get all the ideas out of you and onto the page. When you edit, then it's time to worry about what your point actually is and how your reader will understand it. It's a little weird to me that someone would take this aphorism literally.
Re: “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
#3I had always heard this used as kind of a metaphor: do whatever the hell you want to in writing, follow every thread, wander all over the place, believe your own bullshit, and just get all the ideas out of you and onto the page. When you edit, then it's time to worry about what your point actually is and how your reader will understand it. It's a little weird to me that someone would take this aphorism literally.
Former copy editor here, would not recommend this approach for writing anything non-artistic. Imagine a coder or engineer following this recommendation: no plan, no structure, just throwing ideas willy-nilly. Eventually, you then have to sift through all the ideas, find what's good and what gels, and then re-write to make it coherent, narrative, and logical. You'll probably incur a lot of technical debt and overhead with this approach.
However, if you go into the initial phase with a goal/structure in mind, you're going to be much closer to the final product after your first effort. Many, many writers use outlines/plans. Something that happens a lot in research is that articles are formulaic, they generally have the same sorts of content, so writing them actually becomes easier once familiarity with the structure is obtained.
I would say your approach could be useful for either an artistic format OR for someone who is severely writers' blocked. If you truly have no idea what to write, something is better than nothing. But generally speaking, having a plan/outline is very useful.
Re: “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
#4The article offers a binary choice between 'sober' and 'drunk' (my phrasing) while developing art and says that 'drunk' art is bad because it glorifies addiction and propagates the myth of creativity. It also equates art with work where being under the influence is clearly unprofessional / dangerous.
Personally, I've found that an occasional beer - and some music - while working on a piece of art (as an unwinding activity) can help me get into a zone and sometimes seems to help me think creatively. If you drink so much that you lose coordination or a sense of what is viable then clearly the effects are negative, but I don't think it's as black of white as the article suggests. I'd agree that if I was a professional artist (I'm not) who couldn't work unless they were stoned, this would be clearly undesirable.
Re: “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
#5I had always heard this used as kind of a metaphor: do whatever the hell you want to in writing, follow every thread, wander all over the place, believe your own bullshit, and just get all the ideas out of you and onto the page. When you edit, then it's time to worry about what your point actually is and how your reader will understand it. It's a little weird to me that someone would take this aphorism literally.
Taking things too literally seems to be a plague infecting many topics lately. I've interpreted the phrase similarly, do whatever you need to, just get "it" out of your head! Perfection is the enemy of good.
Re: “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
#6I had always heard this used as kind of a metaphor: do whatever the hell you want to in writing, follow every thread, wander all over the place, believe your own bullshit, and just get all the ideas out of you and onto the page. When you edit, then it's time to worry about what your point actually is and how your reader will understand it. It's a little weird to me that someone would take this aphorism literally.
Former copy editor here, would not recommend this approach for writing anything non-artistic. Imagine a coder or engineer following this recommendation: no plan, no structure, just throwing ideas willy-nilly. Eventually, you then have to sift through all the ideas, find what's good and what gels, and then re-write to make it coherent, narrative, and logical. You'll probably incur a lot of technical debt and overhead…
As a coder I do a lot of my best work with a beer or two.
Re: “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
#7I had always heard this used as kind of a metaphor: do whatever the hell you want to in writing, follow every thread, wander all over the place, believe your own bullshit, and just get all the ideas out of you and onto the page. When you edit, then it's time to worry about what your point actually is and how your reader will understand it. It's a little weird to me that someone would take this aphorism literally.
Perhaps the difference is between people (professional artists?) who need to create competent art to make a living, and people (amateur artists like myself) who see art as a way of relaxing and unwinding.
Re: “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Former copy editor here, would not recommend this approach for writing anything non-artistic. Imagine a coder or engineer following this recommendation: no plan, no structure, just throwing ideas willy-nilly. Eventually, you then have to sift through all the ideas, find what's good and what gels, and then re-write to make it coherent, narrative, and logical. You'll probably incur a lot of technical debt and overhead…
As a coder I do a lot of my best work with a beer or two.
Gotta hit that Ballmer Peak.
Re: “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
#9I had always heard this used as kind of a metaphor: do whatever the hell you want to in writing, follow every thread, wander all over the place, believe your own bullshit, and just get all the ideas out of you and onto the page. When you edit, then it's time to worry about what your point actually is and how your reader will understand it. It's a little weird to me that someone would take this aphorism literally.
It's really about skewing your exploration/exploitation tradeoff towards exploration if you want to excel.
(Of course, now that I think of it that way, it sure sounds like survivor bias... Exploring rather than exploiting is great if your exploration finds something!)
Re: “Write Drunk, Edit Sober” Is Bad Advice
#10Bukowski seems to have written drunk many times.