Wide-Spread Drug Abuse Reported in Fiction Community
In the light of certain revelations in the sports world, I feel it’s only my duty to tell the truth about drug use in the fiction community.
I have, in fact, used human growth hormone while writing, and beer. So have Jay Lake , who is obviously on massive amounts of steroids, Elizabeth Bear, and a host of others. I have, in fact, personally injected Peter Straub and Gene Wolfe with ImagineX, a steroid responsible for uncontrollable visions. Kelly Link reportedly gets high on something called inTerStitial. (Lucius Shepard may have once tried the old mary jane, but he never inhaled.)
I could go on, but I won’t. It is the untold tragedy of the writing community–how the pressure to get ahead, to win awards, to get into year’s best anthos, leads dozens of writers down the path of this kind of abuse.
The result: a whole generation of asterisk-laden accomplishments. Even Ian M. Banks’ Culture novels are now suspect, especially given his brazen admissions in his book on whiskey drinking. MarXism addict China Mieville is a walking, talking Poster Boy for free-basing politics.
How can we vote Brian Aldiss into Science Fiction Hall of Fame when we know he’s been shooting up Hothouse drugs for over forty years? How can we vote Ursula K. LeGuin into the Fantasy Hall of Fame when we know she’s been addicted to CurMudGeon for almost a decade? To say nothing of Jeffrey Ford’s licking of toads.
19 comments on “Wide-Spread Drug Abuse Reported in Fiction Community”
Surely the habit of “doing conventions” is by far the most dangerous addition for genre writers. Possibly we should draw a polite veil over the sad individuals who have been tempted to try FanFic.
I’ve had theories that Jay Lake’s “homemade biscuits” were a front for something sinister for some time. If he’d just publish the damn sequel to ‘Trial of Flowers’ I’d be willing to forgive and forget.
Also, Jeff: Roger Clemens may be suing you.
I confess. I’ve been snorting Vegemite again
Caffeine. And horse tranquilizers.
Yes, I think we should turn this into a confessional–so…what else is everyone snorting these days?
JV
This is very disappointing news.
I don’t take drugs. That’s probably why I can’t write for shit. ;)
I myself prefer a combination of No-Doz, creme of tartar and applewood pipe tobacco. Usually with a chaser of wasabi vodka.
These pipes are *clean*, baby.
what else is everyone snorting these days?
….disdain? mockery? They usually involve snorting.
Actually, I find the combination of absinthe and high quality green tea to be quite effective.
I have a confession, and I think it’s best to start at the beginning. And by the beginning, I mean somewhere around the middle, towards the end, and then we can go back (a bit like the film Maverick?).
This fall, in Saratoga Springs, I was making my way towards BarCon at WFC when Jay Lake stepped out from behind a wavey curtain and, with the shortest of glances to check who was in earshot, muttered this: “we’re having cheese.” I, of course, had heard of these covert cheese meetings, and stepped through the door into a plain, empty room with scattered coats and a long table at the end. I was amazed to find Deanna Hoak and Kat Feete (amongst others) already there, and off their faces on cheese. Someone had even brought homemade products.
Bits of my life since I fell in with the science fiction crowd are vague at best. A week in March 2007 is just a haze (now we’re nearer the beginning), with flickering memories of whisky, wine, whisky again and then three more bottles of wine, and fading into stupour at three in the morning with Al Robertson, Heather Lindsley and Hal Duncan in a bar underneath Charing Cross Road in London, mutteringly somewhat incoherently about the best works of Ray Bradbury. WFC ’06 is just a blur…
Clearly, I need help. Thank you for bursting the dam on this scandal, Jeff, and if you can hear this then help me, Evil Monkey, you’re my only hope. For President.
“what else is everyone snorting these days”
I’m snorting the ground up bones of saints. I find I can’t start the day without a blow of saints in me nose.
I like alcohol, but really, only as a way of collecting field data. And most of my drug use is pretty well documented anyway.
I only use writing because it improves my drug use. Without the writing I wouldn’t be nearly as creative in my chemical abuse. Sure, I know some people say that writing just messes you up, that you can straighten up and still be just as good a druggie, *better* even, but I honestly think that the writing increases my narcotics skills no end, that I wouldn’t be half as good without it. And I’m in complete control, you know. I can stop it anytime. Honest I can. It’s not an addiction, really it’s not.
Wait. Am I missing the point here?
No Hal, I think you hit it right on the head. You really seem to get the good shit, though. Who’s your dealer?
I illicitly sniff babies foreheads. ::sobbing, imploring the Gods of the Nebulas:: I have sinned against you!
You know, this coming from someone has running conversations with his Evil Monkey is especially funny. Just saying. :)
In about 1983 when I was a student of Joanna Russ’s, she told the class about the results of a context for the best story written under the influence of drugs. The winning story, so she said, was written under the influence of — gasp — asprin.
Hey this is a very interesting article! Thanks!
I like the idea. Thanks
Comments are closed.