Writers

[darahart]

I love to write.......and everytime I put my pen to paper, I want to light up a cig. This is killing me. Literally, I guess. Glad to meet you!

[buh-bye]

Ok - where is everyone? I can't believe there are over 30,000 people on this site and I'm the only writer - or person that identifies as a writer - HELLLOOOOO!! No activity since November of last year? Come on people! Get a SHOUT OUT!!

[lyndafitz]

 It looks like no one‘s replied in the last nine years. I can’t be the only writer on this site. Yes, I’m a professional writer, I have been from much of my life. Not professional. That finally happened in 2007  when I was offered a contract by a publisher. But I’ve been writing for longer than I care to admit. 

 Anyone else out there? 

[chrisreimold]

I'm not a professional writer (yet) but I love to write, and it is one of my main triggers... I have always smoked and/or drunk while writing something, whether on the computer or pen and paper. I used to make a joke that I'm a "true writer" because a lot of famous writers were notorious chain smokers and drinkers. But now, I am making the effort to write more and smoke a lot less. 🙂

[rachel-h.]

I'm a Journalism major, and I definitely smoke when I write! I'm trying to change that now though. I didn't realize writing and studying would be triggers when I was mentally preparing myself weeks in advance. Then when I sat down to study, I couldn't focus at all! My craving lasted for over 3 hours, even though I was chewing the gum, and I ended up having a panic attack. I've also noticed the writing I've done in the past few days has either been difficult, or not up to my usual standards... Anyone else experience this?

[freebreath]

I am a writer who doesn't smoke while writing. I had a baby like 19 years ago and so I do not smoke mindlessly everywhere and certainly not where I live and spend most of my time. I only smoked some of the 13 years since I started smoking after my baby was almost five. I write because I love to write. I find that through writing I can depict the fleeting thoughts and images that flicker for brilliant  moments and then capture something of the esence. Like swatting flys. I find writing particularly facinating when I am filled with desire for the attention of others and it is completely unlikely because of the time of day or someother practical inconvienance. I am definately a writer. Un trained. Un published. But hye you are the one begging for the attention  so there you go. Hello...my other name is Patricia. The new site would not let me use it here. So it is a semi-secret.

[laflamme]

I'm a crime reporter, columnist and author up here on the Maine tundra. Been sucking down the smokes for 25 years. I've actually put off quitting several times "just until I finish this novel." Five novels later, I'm still smoking. I step outside to smoke when a sentence or story twist has me tied up in knots. I could easily step outside and do something else while working it out. Dig a hole, throw rocks, serenade a neighbor, etc.

Glad to meet you fellow sufferers.

[bigmak]

I'm a budding screenwriter, and while writing I don't smoke -- I do it after I've written, as a break.  I have a first screenplay finished, after seemingly endless rewrites (I actually wrote one 18 years ago as part of a class, but I don't count it because, well, it sucks), and I'm just a few pages away from finishing the first draft of a second.

Getting anyone to actually read the finished tome has been confusing and pretty frustrating, which only adds to my reaching for a smoke.  Hollywood is built to keep people out, and I'm still learning how to scale the walls.  I've had suggestions that I enter some contests, but I just want to sell the thing; whoever gets their hands on it will change it ad nauseum anyway.  What I need is an agent, dammit! 

I notice that there aren't many recent postings for this group; maybe more will join.  Am I alone in thinking that honest (i.e., emotionally honest) writing is capable of turning the author into a nervous wreck (hence the cigarette temptations)?  This is my experience, anyway.  I find that after concentrating so hard on what I'm writing, I need a way to cut loose and just let my brain wander.  I've taken up exercise after a long lapse, which does help.

Anyway, quit day is Saturday, December 26th.  I can't wait.

[misskittyfantastico]

I’m new here, I’m a writer, and while I smoke outside when my kids are home, when they are not, I smoke and write.  My whole desk smells like smoke, and I can’t write as well because I have to keep stopping to smoke.  I don’t have an ashtray because I only picked up smoking again (after being quit 10 years!!!!) in October, and I thought that if I bought an ashtray I would be stuck smoking for life.  So it’s hard to type and smoke at the same time, especially without an ashtray. 

I’ve quit today, well sorta…had two cigs and then put on the patch.  Weather’s terrible so I can’t go out and get more. 

I write fiction, screenplays and creative non fic, done a little freelance journalism for the local paper.  I’d like to try writing a teleplay, I think I’m probably best suited towards that.   I never finish anything I write, I’m really struggling with it because I need to write, but I can’t get past act 1, most times.  But that’s a separate issue from the smoking.  I was like that before I picked up again.

I have a character smoking which I’ve never done before.  I think it’s helpful to me to sort of get that out through her.  I wonder what will happen.  Will she quit?  Right now it’s an incidental trait- but maybe I can get some mileage out of my suffering through quitting.

Jen

[janiejane]

I fantasize about writing my best novel while smoking and after it gets published, I quit smoking for good and enjoy a vacation in the Carribean without smoking because I have a really hot boyfriend with me whom I met at a book signing event and who, because he is in such great shape and has always been health-conscious, has never smoked and has never seen me with a cigarette in my fingers. We are happy together there in the sunshine and somewhere else in the world my story is on a table in a smoke-free bookshop about to be purchased by a smoker who will smoke while reading it. He or she will smoke for the both of us, but I won't be the one who coughs or smells bad.