Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
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). |
Yeah, it's been...lemme think...16 years? Yes, about that.
I know that it's ritual and habit. It just strikes me as odd that that--creative writing, as opposed to business writing--was so heavily afflicted.
Oh, well. BTW: when I quit, the last time, (LOL), I wore the stepdown-type patch. What most folks don't do, though, is what I did--I wore that last, lowest-dose Nicotine patch
for a year. That's what it took, for me to make the transition, as I'd smoked a lot. I don't know if that will help, but it did work for me.
Hitch