Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Here's a weird one--before I quit smoking, which is quite a long time ago, I was very creative and could produce a lot of content, at night. Me, my desk, my computer, and a pack of smokes. Once I quit smoking, it seems dramatically harder for me to sit down and create. Weird, eh?
Hitch
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11 years ago I gave up smoking. My first published book was written as an ex-smoker - it was just me, my keyboard and a glass of whiskey (that's not U.S. spelling, I drink Irish whiskey). My good behaviour lasted just less than 5 years, which meant that the second book was written half-and-half, and the third book mostly as a smoker (or an ex-ex-smoker).
(
I've only just made the connection that I started smoking again about the time that my first book was getting rejected by trad-pubs. ... So it's all their fault! 
)
Curiously enough, my smoking (or lack there of) did not seem to affect my writing all that much at that time. I find that surprising because I had noticed how easily my writing was distracted by other things (eg: minor injury or illness).
I am now attempting to be a non-smoker again (become an ex-ex-ex-smoker), and must admit that I have not managed to do any writing in the last few weeks ... but there have been other distractions, and giving up smoking is all about distraction.
Smoking, for many (most?) people, has an element of ritual, and so we come to associate certain actions with lighting a cigarette. (Pouring a drink, sitting down to write, whatever.) One of the hard parts with quitting is breaking those rituals (triggers/habits) - which is where distraction comes in (make yourself think of something else at those times).
And that is a long way of saying: If sitting down to write was one of your triggers for smoking, there seems little wonder that giving up caused problems. It
might help if you could set up to write in some way that would not trigger those old associations (or maybe replace it with another ritual).