How Alcohol Used To Help My Writing
(Birthing The Mysterious Paper Thing)
Dear Esteemed Readers,
Shortly after I first sent my memoir to my agent and editor, I had a conversation with another published writer, during which I suggested that there is a difference between consciously attempting to create a commercial product and allowing a work of art to pass through you.
At the time, my writer friend was simultaneously working on a few passion projects and a novel squarely aimed at acquiring commercial success. Our conversation was largely about whether writers are prewired for one particular type of writing or another. Does a writer of commercial fiction choose to be a writer of commercial fiction, or is that writer born that way? Same with a literary writer or an even a writer who defies genre. Do we really get to pick? Or do we inherit a predisposition? Does our personal baggage make us one type or another? Can we switch gears? Should we switch gears? Does success or inner peace come from being the writer you inherently are? Can you have both? Why do so many writers have neither?
I argued that I could try for the next fifty years to be, say, a Harlan-Coben-type writer of wildly popular mystery novels and suspense thrillers and I’m pretty sure I would not be able to replicate Mr. Coben’s success. I actually (long ago) did an event with Harlan and he blurbed my last book. My few brief and extremely positive interactions with him suggested that he is very much at home being a Harlan-Coben-type writer, because he is Harlan Coben. He was gregarious and funny and generous and full of life. He was bursting with energy. He seemed overwhelmingly extroverted. The type of man who could publish books year after year and have enough energy left over to personally oversee their many streaming adaptations. If ever I have the privilege of speaking with Harlan again, I think I’ll ask him if he follows some sort of recipe for his incredible success, or is he just doing what’s in him to do. I’m positive that the conversation would be fascinating and nuanced. I know I would learn much. I suspect that it would provide great insights into who Harlan is. I’m not so sure it would radically help anyone else figure out who they should be—or what wants to come through them.
That was my position in the conversation with my writer friend. We ultimately have to be the writer we are meant to be. Our readers will sniff out fraudulence. And figuring out what type of writer each of us is destined to be requires looking inward, not outward.
Here’s another way of putting it: We have to submit to and be in service of what wants to come into this world through us, even while knowing that the collective is capricious and usually won’t reward the best of what wants to come through each and every one of us. The job of an artist is allowing it to come through anyway—and to endure the birthing pains.
Shortly after my conversation with the aforementioned fellow writer friend, he sent me a text suggesting that I write this Substack post. He wanted to know how one might allow a piece of writing to pass through oneself. How can we even know when we are doing such a thing?
I’m not sure I can tell anyone else how to allow something to pass through them. But I can describe my experiences with what I have often referred to as channeling. If the word ‘channeling’ freaks you out, I can offer you this more culturally accepted alternative: ‘Being in the zone.’
When I first entered into Jungian analysis, my analyst used to say to me, “You still think you wrote all those novels. That’s the problem.” He wasn’t calling me a plagiarist. He was trying to get me to see that my unconscious was doing all sorts of things, of which I was unaware. Then my analyst started saying I needed to think of the conscious part of myself—my ego—as a sort of antenna for something greater than me. That I needed to subjugate my conscious awareness of who I think I am, so that I could allow the greater thing to use me.
Serve the story, my MFA advisors used to say.
My analyst says, “Let it flow down and out.” I think he means allowing the art to pass through me without mistaking it for me. When he first started saying this to me, I was creatively blocked. I was also recently sober. My analyst’s message was not initially well received by yours truly. I didn’t want to let go of the illusion of autonomy. And I continued to remain blocked for almost a year afterward.
Drugs and alcohol are associated with creative types. Sometimes we glamorize this fact. Sometimes we demonize it. Seldom do we really try to understand it. When I was getting drunk nightly, I thought of it as essential—even life-saving—anxiety-relief. But unbeknownst to me, my drunkenness also accomplished an important psychological function. I was obliterating my ego—or my sense of self—on a nightly basis, which allowed unconscious to more easily take the wheel. Sober, I might spend all my time thinking about the taxes and bills I needed to pay, what might impress my editor or get me a movie deal, or what might cause other people to judge and/or shun me. Drunk, I was flying with the gods. None of those previously mentioned things mattered anymore. Innate and intense feelings would overtake me. I no longer felt as though I was in control of my thought process—I could simply experience it. The spirit of alcohol turned down the volume on all the ‘me’ noise in my head—and then other things percolated up. Those things were often what I’d write about.
But then I got sober and the writing process became impossible for me. I could no longer manage my anxiety. Long distance running became my new drug, but it didn’t free me up creatively like alcohol did. I tried every day to write what I thought I was supposed to be writing—what would earn me rewards. All of it was shit. I could no longer access that other, more mysterious thing that was in me, but wasn’t of me—the thing that helped me write my novels.
But even back when I was drinking, I’d sometimes fall into the trap of overthinking my creative process.
When I was a Creative Writing MFA student, I certainly drank a lot. But I also consciously tried to write what I thought would please my advisors. I experimented with different tones and styles and submitted all sorts of essays and stories to various literary magazines. I worked like a machine, churning out pages. In hopes of figuring out what the world wanted, I asked myself, Who do I need to be? instead of asking, What wants to come through me?
I remember revising my MFA creative thesis based on the often contradictory feedback of my two advisors. They both were extremely intelligent. I admired them greatly. But they were unlike me in pretty much every way possible. They were not interested in what I was clumsily aiming at. (And that’s not me blaming or shaming them. You either are interested in something or you aren’t. It’s not a character flaw.) Still, I tried very hard to write what I thought they wanted me to write. I wanted to gain their respect. So I began experimenting with my thesis, allowing their feedback to be my only guide. The result was a sort of Frankenstein manuscript that never really got the lightning strike it needed to bring itself to life. By the time the MFA experience came to a close, I had no idea what my creative thesis even was. I seriously worried that they wouldn’t let me graduate. When I was given a diploma, I realized that I had been outwardly chasing approval rather than being inwardly receptive to what authentically wanted to come through me. I wasn’t supposed to write like my advisors. My antenna was meant to catch different signals.
Luckily, I started to figure this out before my last semester. Out of academic frustration, I decided to write a novel in secret. I told myself that I was allowed to do whatever I wanted with this one, because no one was going to read it but me. It would be free and clear of the MFA experience. I was living in Massachusetts with my in-laws at the time and was homesick for Philly. I was making no money and feeling embarrassed about my station in life. I still hadn’t quite made the transition into adulthood, even though I was in my early thirties. So I created a character who was not only my age but also feeling all my feelings. Then I sent him home to the Philadelphia suburbs to live with his parents. I felt overwhelmingly called to give life to this character. And I yielded to the impulse. Immediately, something shifted in me. The writing became much easier. It often felt like I was only typing the words that some other thing was whispering into my ear. I began laughing a lot. I often wept as I wrote. I allowed my feelings to have their way with me. I didn’t try to control or stifle anything that was emerging. And I looked forward to getting started each and every morning.
Writing my creative MFA thesis had felt like pushing a giant boulder up a hill. I hated every single second of it. Writing The Silver Linings Playbook felt like my butt was skipping along the wake of a powerful boat with its motor set to full throttle, as the back of my head and legs joyfully bounced on a rubber inner tube. I wasn’t swimming on my own steam. I wasn’t plotting my own course. I had freely surrendered and yoked myself to a far greater power source. I was just enjoying the ride, going wherever the story wanted to go.
Ideas began blooming everywhere. At night, my mother-in-law would watch Dancing With The Stars on TV. It made her so happy, so I’d watch it with her. Tiffany has to make Pat dance, something whispered into my ear. I said, “Done.” I’d call home and my perpetually stressed and busy father would be curt with me, making me feel unclaimed. Put that in the book, the voice whispered, and I said, “You got it.” A big part of me missed teaching American literature. The voice said, Find a way to make Pat read your old syllabus. And make it hilarious. So I did.
I don’t think this was simply a case of ‘write what you know.’ Or even, ‘write what you love.’ Pat People’s story wanted to come through me. I didn’t create him; I allowed him to leap out of me. When I finished the manuscript, I was well aware of how unconventional and even straight-up weird it was. But I felt absolutely compelled to put it into the world. I sent it out to literary agents. Many said they didn’t like it. Some said they had no idea what it even was. But I kept submitting. And, eventually, the right people showed up and took an interest. Looking back now, I think they were attracted to the daring authenticity of it. Maybe even its strangeness. People who knew me well in 2006—when I was writing TSLP—were not surprised by what they read. When my wife first read it, she said, “This feels so authentically you.” And, yet, paradoxically, the experience of writing it had felt so wonderfully free of me. Or maybe I should say the writing experience was uncontaminated by the worst of Matthew Quick.
Why didn’t I just write TSLP when I first went to Goddard? It wasn’t the type of book my advisors were writing or reading. I didn’t think such a thing would be taken seriously by the literary world. I didn’t have the courage to be myself. I didn’t yet have the courage to yield to what wanted to come through me. Probably all of the above. And, also, the voice wasn’t speaking to me yet. Or maybe I hadn’t made myself receptive.
When I was at Goddard, Walter Mosley visited. His lecture might have been the best I heard as a Goddard student. I remember him saying he had a friend who was a poet. And this poet used to say something like, “I sit down at my writing desk every day for hours. And if a poem comes by, I catch it.” Twenty years ago, I didn’t fully understand the wisdom being offered, but today I see that the poet was stressing the importance of making yourself available to the greater thing that might want to come through you. Being there at the writing desk, making yourself open and present. Cultivating the proper attitude and mental state. Making the proper sacrifice. Relegating the ego. Submitting. Inviting the greater thing to inhabit your work, offering the greater thing your fingers, your laptop, your pages. And then getting the hell out of the way when it takes you up on your offer. I think I might tweak the wise poet’s sentiment. We don’t catch the poem. We allow it to possess us.
In the summer of 2024, when my editor, Jofie, asked me to write a memoir about my alcoholism and my father’s dementia, he said something like, “It could be your Tuesdays With Morrie.” I’m pretty sure Jofie merely meant that I had the potential to write a massive bestseller. He was cheerleading. But a part of me heard the comment as, Write like Mitch Albom. Don’t be Matthew Quick. Be Mitch Albom.
When I got to work, twenty-thousand words immediately flew out of me like an exhalation.
I was being pulled by the speedy boat again. I was tubing.
But then I had a Sisyphean relapse.
This is not Tuesdays With Morrie! my ego screamed. You are not writing like Mitch Albom! Jofie wants Mitch Albom! This is all wrong!
Then I was attempting and failing—every single day—to push a giant boulder up a hill again.
That went on for almost half a year.
As many of you know, I’ve been living on Lady’s Island, near Beaufort, SC, right around the corner from my parents. I help my mother care for my father. We caretake his dementia together. In the process, many hilarious and/or devastating things have happened. Because I was under contract to write the memoir, I’d dutifully type up Dad’s and my misadventures.
For many months, my internal monologue sounded something like this: You have to be whatever will make your business associates more money. Why are you NOT writing like Mitch Albom? Mitch Albom is very smart. He understands how to sell books. He is wise. Be him!
I could have killed that bad voice by getting black-out drunk. And when I woke up the next morning, I’d be able to write while that shittier lightweight of a voice nursed the hangover. At least, that’s how it used to work. But I’m done with drinking forever. So I simply sat down every day at my writing desk and waited.
Then, one day, my father did something as shocking as it was beautiful. I’m not going to write about it here, because I don’t want to spoil the memoir. But his actions woke something up inside of me. I realized that the dementia was doing to my dad what alcohol used to do for me. It was breaking down all of his ego defenses and giving him access to something greater.
When I went home and wrote about what I had experienced alone with my father, I found myself openly weeping at the keyboard. And as my fingers furiously tapped, I realized that I was not consciously controlling them. Then a part of me mentally stepped back and observed what was happening. All of my fingers kept typing away. I wasn’t thinking up the words that were appearing on the screen, nor was I telling my fingers which keys to strike. I was in the zone. Or—if you will allow it—I was channeling.
I read over what I had written; the text was alive. I was even surprised by some of the phrases and word choices. Of course, I had already lived the plot. But the insights, the prose, and the emotions all felt elevated beyond what would have been if my ego had interrupted the channeling with its ideas about what the piece should be. If I had stopped and said, “Wait a minute. Jofie wants Mitch Albom and this doesn’t sound anything like Tuesdays With Morrie,” I would have ruined everything.
Instead, I gave myself over to the process. I allowed whatever it was to flow freely through me. I took the ‘me’ out of the situation and trusted.
I went tubing.
One of the things I continue to learn in Jungian analysis is this: We are not always the best gardeners of ourselves. Often times, we prune and cut and shape and plant and rearrange. Sometimes this is necessary, of course. But our best efforts can also maim, disfigure, and even kill our gardens.
I had a friend who was a park ranger. I once asked him how to best take care of a tree on our property. And he said, “Take a walk in the woods. No one does anything to those trees and yet they are there. In many cases, they are far healthier and more beautiful than the trees in our yards.”
I’m sure many of the writers reading this are thinking, Of course, manuscripts need editing!
Maybe some of you are saying, Why then go to Jungian analysis? Isn’t that a form of gardening?
Yes. My editor and I edit my manuscripts. My analyst and I garden my psyche. That is the cost of publishing and being a productive member of society. For me it’s the cost of being mentally well.
But I also allow for a little business up front and party in the back. I wear a psychological mullet.
When I am alone at the writing desk, when I am alone with my thoughts, I often yield to the instincts of the feral creature that I innately am. The untamable things that want to come through me will not tolerate the self-serving rules of my ego. Once I have it all down on the page, once it has fully passed through me, I will begin the process of getting it ready for market, if it is indeed to be sold. But to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure how much control I have over that process either. I definitely turn my ego back on and consciously attempt to up my chances of selling. But the thing mostly is what it is by then. I’m just packaging and advertising it.
Sometimes the publishing experience can make me forget that something I wrote was once so independently alive. Maybe a certain book didn’t sell as many copies as was predicted. Maybe the reviews were mixed. Maybe the movie adaptation didn’t pan out. I’ve often let my ego trick me into believing that any one of those things means the whole creative endeavor was a mistake. That I was crazy to think what came through me was worth anything at all. That I am a madman. Completely delusional. And then I’ll not only banish the published project from my mind, but devalue my creative instincts, or my antenna.
But, thankfully, something always corrects my course. Maybe someone will send me a piece of fan mail. Maybe there will be renewed interest in Hollywood. Maybe I’ll be asked to give a talk. With a groan and a roll of my eyes, I’ll crack open whatever dusty novel is in question, fully expecting to agree with my ego, which had long ago decided that the story was better forgotten, because it did not fetch whatever ego felt was the proper compensation for its subjugation. Then I’ll try to hate-read my own work.
A funny thing will happen.
The work will feel both remarkably familiar and also completely foreign. And, as I turn more and more pages, I’ll almost become giddy. I’ll remember what it feels like to be inhabited by this particular story, the characters, the experience—to be possessed by all of it. I’ll fall into another trance, as some wondrous, mysterious thing whispers the words into my ears all over again. My fingers will tingle, my heart will quicken, and my face will flush. And then I’ll simply feel grateful for the opportunity to have been useful, to have participated in birthing the mysterious paper thing in my hand.
What will you unleash into the world?
Your man in the Lowcountry,
Matthew
PS - Did you read the July 21st post? That Avuncular, Middle-Of-The-Night, Celebration (Straight Men Need Male Intimacy Too)
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