How or does your lifestyle effect your writing?

[Nitro96]

for example, if your life were to be completely turned upside down, ie: new job, new town, no friends, perhaps even completely on your own, no family etc. do you think it would effect your writing for better or worse?

I can't remember who it was posted on here a couple times about having to change their lifestyle and it made matters difficult trying to write something worthwhile. It seems to me a change could be a good thing giving you more to write about with new surroundings and such but then again I can see where it could also be devastating.

What's you take?

[blue2blue]

Well... I used to have a hell of a lifestyle.

 

But I'm not much into upheaval in terms of living situations. If you throw out one place I only lived four months before they tore it down, I've lived an average of around 7-1/2 years per domicile.

 

But some years ago I spent a couple months traveling around Europe, mostly by myself, hoping to do some writing. I took my guitar and did a bunch of playing, but barely got anything written. (I was sort of decompressing from some life-stress as well, so it was complicated.)

 

GF-stress, OTOH, used to be a real song mill... I pretty much had to be completely broken up with each one before the songs would come. I'm not much of a happy song guy. Funny, yes, sometimes. But not generally, you know, sunny. I like sunny... don't get me wrong. I just don't do sunny. As a rule.

 

Anyhow, back when my life -- and lifestyle -- was actively generating grist for the mill, I often found myself writing while hung over. And I finally figured out that it was sort of like electro-shock therapy for me... a 'good' drunk (and I say that as someone who drank enthusiastically for a quarter century but hasn't since '94) would pretty much blow out all the accumulated thought threads worrying and entangling my brain. (Maybe I should have tried meditation more seriously. ) But I realize you're more asking for situational stuff, I think.

 

I'll say that the last time I moved I was so stressed out I didn't write for a very long time after. But I'd barely been writing before, so, maybe no change. (I also did so much prep and cleaning getting ready to sell my old house that the skin on my hands was raw and cracking apart. After I got into my new place and broke out a guitar, all I could do was play slide, strictly with the slide -- fretting was incredibly painful. But that's not really directly a psychological thing.)

 

Anyhow... I dunno...

[grace_slick]

My lifestyle holds me back because I am a total routine-oriented person. I

[Nitro96]

for me it's hard to imagine a completely disembedding of what's going on in my life , but I can see where it would change my writing (what little I do). I think it would probably be more focused on the new world around me instead of the trivial crap of everyday life here at home.

So in a manner of speaking I think it would probably do me good to get away for a while. I suppose it's just a matter of what frame of mind you're in and how you deal with situations as they arise

[Dingoist]

In the late 90s I picked up and moved half way across the country for a job. Left friends, family, everything behind but 3 boxes of belongings (which I mailed up), my 2 guitars, a cheap messed-up amp (well, I amp'd a cello through it distorted with a old boss ds-1 pedal so it was my fault) and a suitcase. Before that I was pretty active in the local scene. Some gigging, a fair bit of writing, playing about with other musicians, etc.

 

I didn't play much guitar seriously for a long while, and didn't even try to write any music. Worked insane hours during the week. Drank heavily/excessively on the weekends. Hung out with street poets and musicians after bars closed. Occasionally would sing some Johnny Cash tunes, with a really fried street guy at 3:00 AM on a semi regular basis. I started playing again about 2 years later, but this time I fell into playing more irish trad, and tin-pan-alley folk tunes (guitar, harmonica, backup vocals).

 

Moved again to another city for work. Similar experience, except I had more money to drink more, and it was a corporate job. So during the day, I dressed as a good corporate citizen, and when I got home then I put on the combat boots, etc. Dropped guitar though picked up photography + darkroom instead. So it wasn't completely wasted time.

 

Life change number three came when I met my wife, settled down, mostly stopped drinking (I can't stand hangovers... I'm getting too old for that pain), bought an old house, and had kids. It really wasn't until last year until I started really trying to write songs again, which is almost 13 years later. What has really proven more invaluable is ... free time is hard to come by. I want my rest time, more than less, to account for something.

 

So going back to the original post... Shaking things up and leaving everything behind wasn't a good muse for me. It was a wild time and I don't regret it.

 

I still have my knee high combat boots on a shelf in the basement. I still have the memories, the lack thereof and the scars. I still have my old guitars, which have experienced most of this with me and hold a special place maybe even above the wife (just don't tell her that).

 

Funny thing, now that I have not enough time and too much responsibility I do more writing and serious playing/practicing than when I was younger, had too much free time and not enough responsibility.

[kurdy]

I'm probably odd in that I require contentment and stability in order to focus enough to write a song. Probably why I don't write as much as I'd like. When something's bothering me, or if I'm overwhelmed with external issues, I don't feel like writing. That said, sometimes periods of instability can inspire some good songs, but only upon reflection, looking back. I can't focus when I'm right in the middle of it.

[rockinrobby]

I find that the drunker I get, the harder it is to produce good music.

[dannysigma]

I am hopeless at routine which is really what I need to write (I'm not talking about those wonderful bolt-of-inspiration songs that come pretty much ready made but the hard grist of writing when there is no inspiration). My lifestyle seems to be semi-nomadic (I've lived in more than 20 different places in 12 different cities across 3 continents in the last 2 decades). It took four years, for example, for me to write a novel (an extremely bad novel I might add) that should have taken a matter of months. And since I met my wife 6 years ago I don't even have heartache to write about. Perhaps if I settled into one place for more than 18 months...

[grace_slick]

I want to write a novel too...but I think unless I really loved whatever idea(s) I came up with, I'd just never finish anything. I always get ideas, start something, but then get bored. My mum's an author...she's had several books published. Her and her writer friends tend to take about a year or so to do each book. Some of them churn through them though, writing one every few months. Wow.

 

Anyway...my lifestyle is also terrible for actually channeling any creative inspirations because I refuse to sing or really play much in front of anyone, so whenever my partner's home, I can't really do much with my music. lol

[dannysigma]

 

...unless I really loved whatever idea(s) I came up with, I'd just never finish anything. I always get ideas, start something, but then get bored..

 

 

I know what you mean - if it were possible to publish a collection of opening chapters to novels then I'd probably be one of the most prolific authors in the hemisphere. My problem is moods: I can only really write something if I am in the right mood. Hence I have about 6 novels on the go, each one waiting for the correct emotional state to continue. Needless to say it isn't a particularly productive way of working. I think that's why I find writing songs easier - they encapsulate moods more quickly and efficiently than prose.

[Lee Knight]

My lifestyle is very routine. But it's a great routine. I wake at 4. I'm at my desk at 5. I check how much work I've got then start browsing here at HC. Sometimes I get lit and everything at work stops (cause I've checked my work load) and I type like a Tas Devil my idea...

 

If I get something worthy, I try to make the time at home to begin realizing it in recorded form.

 

So there's all that time in between. As I work my day gig, my ideas are running rampant. My brain plays my latest idea nonstop and refines it. I recently got myself a little voice recorder same size as my diminutive cell. Now I put down those refinements as well. I can pretty much whisper into my recorder anywhere without people being the wiser. Even in meetings.

 

So my lifestyle... I run on caffeine and ideas. Get a lot of work done too.

 

Note: I used to run a recording/production business after hours but only recently decided the $/time ratio wasn't working for me. Best choice I've made in a while. Now I'm doing my own music again. That whole caffeine idea machine by day thing was put toward other people's music. No more. For now at least.

[LeonardScaper]

 

for example, if your life were to be completely turned upside down, ie: new job, new town, no friends, perhaps even completely on your own, no family etc. do you think it would effect your writing for better or worse?

 

 

Well.........

 

In the past year or so I have lost my business and all of my accumulated monies, left my wife (again), moved to a new town, started a new relationship and become somewhat estranged from my kids. Really.

 

This period has produced a body of work that is far more profound and meaningful than any of my previous endeavors.

[Lee Knight]

 

Well......... In the past year or so I have lost my business and all of my accumulated monies, left my wife (again), moved to a new town, started a new relationship and become somewhat estranged from my kids. Really. This period has produced a body of work that is far more profound and meaningful than any of my previous endeavors.

 

 

 

Holy smokes, Leo. I had an inkling that you were having some rugs yanked from under but this... wow. Well, you've clearly made something of the experience in your music. And you are obviously getting better and better at it. You're going from very good to great.

 

Phoenix Man!!

[grantsabbath]

 

Anyhow, back when my life -- and lifestyle -- was actively generating grist for the mill, I often found myself writing while hung over. And I finally figured out that it was sort of like electro-shock therapy for me... a 'good' drunk (and I say that as someone who drank enthusiastically for a quarter century but hasn't since '94) would pretty much blow out all the accumulated thought threads worrying and entangling my brain.

 

 

I also find myself writing almost ALWAYS after a drunk. I write at other times too, don't get me wrong, but after a night out, it all seems to click.

 

It is very rare for me to have a night on the town (or room) and not write that night or the next day. Often times, I write the words half cut and work on the actual song when I wake up.

 

Anyone else like this?

[blue2blue]

 

for me it's hard to imagine a completely disembedding of what's going on in my life , but I can see where it would change my writing (what little I do). I think it would probably be more focused on the new world around me instead of the trivial crap of everyday life here at home. So in a manner of speaking I think it would probably do me good to get away for a while. I suppose it's just a matter of what frame of mind you're in and how you deal with situations as they arise

I recommend carefully choosing your battles...

 

Or, in this case, choosing the venues for the battles.

 

 

I had a buddy who grew up in OC, CA, and, a failed relationship behind him, decided to move to New York and write a novel. He sold or gave away most of his belongings, including hundreds of his prized albums, and a guitar or two, and headed out.

 

Once he got there he found it was really, really expensive.

 

(No, really, New York City expensive? I guess he thought it would be like a day trip to Newport Beach of something. Instead, for a bed at the YMCA, he was spending what would have got you a suite overlooking the hotel pool in Podunkville. Just staying at the Y was rapidly killing off his cash. Happily, he thought, just when things were getting dark, he ran into a guy who was looking for a contract laborer to help him do a loft conversion. The guy agreed to let my buddy stay in the unheated loft while they worked on it and to pay him a couple grand (only a months rent in NYC at the time). But when they got done, the guy stiffed him, didn't pay him a cent. My pal had to wire home for bus fare. Pick your battles wisely.)

[Stackabones]

Sounds like he got the story for his novel.

[rsadasiv]

Sounds like he got the story for his novel.

 

Or at least the first chapter :poke:

[Bodyguard2112]

I'm in a routine now, but in the wake of a situation where I literally lost almost everything, that, well, that's what got me songwriting.

 

I can always draw back to it and get material.

 

There's a little bit of all that in every song I write, even if no one song really tells exactly that story.

[eeglug]

When my wife & I moved to Boston, we rented the 2nd floor of a beautiful house. I was in the middle of a serious songwriting drought before moving there. I did try to write but something about my life at the time as well as that home seemed to hold me back. When we moved to Chicago I went back to school for my present career and was too preoccupied to resume music. I'm in a better situation now though.

[rockinrobby]

 

I want to write a novel too...

 

 

I had the same dream but never realized it, so I decided to write in my naval instead, personal stuff mostly, and it's an inney? So it's kinda tricky, you have to write really really small.

[grace_slick]

 

I know what you mean - if it were possible to publish a collection of opening chapters to novels then I'd probably be one of the most prolific authors in the hemisphere. My problem is moods: I can only really write something if I am in the right mood. Hence I have about 6 novels on the go, each one waiting for the correct emotional state to continue. Needless to say it isn't a particularly productive way of working. I think that's why I find writing songs easier - they encapsulate moods more quickly and efficiently than prose.

 

 

Heheh, yeah, how can you be expected to remain in the same mood for 6-12 months to complete a book!? Ridiculous! lol

[clambottomjewel]

oh man my lifestyle affects my writing a lot. for some reason i think i write better songs during summer. a lot of people think that anger/sadness/whatever will make a good song, but i kinda find the opposite. in fact i find the best inspiration for my writing is boredom, hence so much coming of the summer. the weather may have something to do with it too, i just don't know!

[Mcfontio]

After the end of January, I'm basically going to be couch surfing until we get another studio/warehouse/basement. The life style has been incredible, to totally {censored}ty and everything in between. How does it effect my writing? Don't know.

 

I need to write more though..

[LeonardScaper]

Phoenix Man!!

 

Hey Lee........thanks, man.

 

I think you may have found just what I have been looking for.