Another fake conversation in my head with nobody:
“So, what are you doing today?”
“Me? Nothing much. Except my third book came out today. Yeah, it’s no big deal, you know how long these things take. Oh? You didn’t know I’d written two other books? Huh.”
Yes, I managed to keep up the pretense that I’m a writer by releasing a third book. This one is my first published work of fiction. I am here to officially tell you that nothing will make a human being take up stupidly heavy drinking like giving birth to a whole other human being on the pages of a book, then killing that person after several chapters of suspenseful physical and emotional torture. Unless you’re a sick individual, in which case you can be that horrible to a made-up person while stone cold sober.
I write young adult fiction so I do have to tone it down a lot, but as one publisher told me, “There’s a really high body count in your work.” She was referring to a book to be released at a later date in which the main characters reach their intended destination only to discover that the entire town has been executed and is on display in the trees outside the city walls as a warning to others. There was a lot of drinking while writing that scene.
My non-fiction book about autism also took a lot of drinking to write, but I make no pretense about that because it’s an instructional memoir and it took an equal amount of drinking to live through it the first time, let alone when I decided to tell these things to the entire world in a book. It’s like I’ve done all the necessary pre-drinking for you. You’re welcome.
At the rate I publish books times the rate squared at which I drink while writing, I figure I should be well on my way to being on the list for a donor liver sometime next September. I was going to switch to writing greeting card copy as a way to salvage my already raggedly precarious inner filtration system, but I learned that greeting card writers are all secretly addicted to cocaine. (note: I made that up, greeting card writers are no more likely to be cocaine addicts than any other kind of writers.)
In the meantime, a toast to your good health and my publishing-slash-liver-donation success.
Lorca Damon 
[…] I’m Still a Writer but I Still Don’t Have Cirrhosis(lorcadamon.com) […]
Congrats! I am also a liver-induced-Hemmingwayesque writer! Unpublished, unless you count some dreary book reviews and hackish newspaper columns. A few poems and one unfinished script in non-script form. Etc. But I will tell you: NAC (Cysteine) clears up your liver quickly (it’s the stuff in eggs but super concentrated in pill form). Also: Milk Thistle capsules. Take them. With a shot of vodka. Cheers!
EVERYTHING is more medicinal with a shot of vodka! Good luck with your book as well!
HOW DO YOU HAVE A NEW BOOK WITHOUT MY PERMISSION?! And what about that musk wine you used to love so much–are you abandoning that in an attempt at class?
Musk wine is only for fancy holidays, like Thursdays. Whiskey is the heavy artillery in case of emergency! I snuck this latest book in there on ya, huh?!? 🙂
Congratulations, and if you’re looking for a liver, I hear David Crosby has got a bunch in his downstairs refrigerator.
Yes, but all of his are on standby. I want a 30yrold Amish woman’s liver next time.
Congratulations on the new book. I hope to join you in the publishing ranks and alcoholism annals, soon.
And I want to hear all about it! Send me info when you do.
I must be a sick individual then. I don’t drink while I write, and a few people have remarked to me ‘You like to kill people off. Nice people.’ Oh well, no point in keeping up the pretense any longer I suppose!
LOVE that cover, and congrats! On not having cirrhosis. Yet.
Thanks! Every day that my liver still works is a victory in my book. And I don’t think you kill off too many people, you’ve struck just the right balance!
Great cover, Lorca. 🙂
Thanks! I actually paid for a professional photo (instead of taking them with my camera phone like with my last books!) but I fell in love with it. The girl looks exactly like she’s living in the story!
It’s great. Well done. 😀
Congratulations and give it time…
Wait…give it time and I’ll develop cirrhosis? Ouch! 🙂
What ever your vice – congrats on the new book Lorca! 🙂
Thanks! MY vice right this moment is Merlot from the gas station up the highway. Liver failure, here I come!
I drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and eat indigestion tablets… it’s a poor diet but my brain positively fizzes… along with my digestive tract. Congratulations on publication.
Maybe that’s what draws me to the alcohol…the angst-ridden plot lines just ooze from my mushed up brain…