Toking & typing: The high life of authors

“I smoke a lot of pot when I write music…” — Lady Gaga

High Hi! I want to introduce you to my friend Kat Goldman, who is a singer/songwriter and the author of Off the Charts: What I Learned from My Almost-Famous Life in Music. 

But first, happy anniversary! Exactly three years ago this month, the Government of Canada legalized Cannabis. 

Back to my writer "bud" Kat.

Her memoir, which came out earlier this year, is a lighthearted, intimate, and hilarious account of how she made the best of “almost making it” — a must-read for anyone thinking, wanting, or trying to make it in the music business. (Or for people like me who have always dreamed of being a rock star. I know you’ve had that dream too! Hasn’t everyone?) 

Kat wrote her memoir…completely high! 

I’m not sure if I'm envious or in total awe. 

I knew she enjoyed cannabis— as do I — but I had no idea she came up with the ideas for her memoir while high, or that she was totally “toking and typing,” until I asked her last week.

“I do it all the time! Don't tell my parents. I wrote my whole last album and my memoir Off the Charts stoned out of my mind,” she told me. “Paul McCartney said it best: weed can make you creative for about 10 minutes, but then it's downhill after that.” 

After a few puffs, she says, “I think I'm brilliant for about 10 to 15 minutes… Oh, how I cherish those 10-15 minutes! I’ll write down as many bright ideas as I can, so I can build on and tweak them later. I once wrote one of the best songs of my life, or so I thought, after I smoked a strain of weed called, “God.” The song is called “Baby, I Understand.” It’s a good song!”

And so is her memoir. It's an incredibly entertaining and interesting read, with venues you’ll recognize and fun tidbits about the music business. (Is it really a shock that a musician enjoys Cannabis? Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, baby!)

BUT, during the editing phases of Off the Charts, Goldman took a break from getting baked. “Weed can stimulate some really innovative ideas, but you wouldn’t want to use your critical mind under the influence," she advises.

Kat warns writers and authors to be prepared. “Sometimes you’ll come up with gold, and other times you’ll read what you wrote and think, “That was ridiculous!’”

What’s interesting to me, especially now that weed is legal, is how many authors (who are alive) who I know for a fact write high are so hesitant to admit it.

We got the stigma of pot and parenting out of the way. I wrote about my experience as a recreational user in an article called, “Parenting Has Gone to Pot: Why So Many Moms Are Getting High.” (If you’re not high and can remember, come back to read it!)

So, it's okay to parent with a little buzz on but not write? People are baffling.

Alexis Jassem and Nikita Stanely, authors of The Rebel Mamas Handbook For (Cool) Moms, which came out last year, have spoken out, once telling Canadian Living that “Cannabis, when dosed properly, helps us be more present and calm and allows us to appreciate (and enjoy) the minutia of everyday life.”

On Mother’s Day this year, a writer broke down the basics of cannabis on the popular website Rebel Mama’s. According to one report, “twice as many mothers have increased their cannabis use since the start of quarantines as opposed to fathers, and moms are also smoking more than women without children — also at double the rate. [16 % vs. 8 %]”

Over my two-decade writing career, I’ve always been completely sober writing, or doing anything work-related. Except once…

I tried writing high one evening to see if I would be more prolific, like so many famous dead authors, as well as some of my author friends, who use(d) cannabis or a form of speed, or both, while writing, some of whom you’ll think, “No way, not her!” (Way!) 

Would being high while writing take me on a magical mystery ride to new and unexpected places?

I got stupid high. I wrote for four hours straight, feeling pretty smug, shutting down my computer, and passing the kitchen sink on the way to my bedroom thinking, “Meh, I'll fold those dishes tomorrow.”

Morning came. When I opened my computer and read what I had thought was pretty genius, I immediately wanted to…get high and go back to bed. 

What I had composed, while high AF, can only be summed up as…less than stellar? 

It gets worse…

Not only did I write a 2,000-word article on how I hate seeing clocks in spin classes — “I'm not going to look at the clock. I'm not going to look at the clock. I'm not going to…F**k, has it really only been 8 minutes?” — but I actually emailed it to an editor at the Washington Post! 

Shockingly, it was rejected.

I didn’t remember sending it at all, nor did I remember sending a ranting email after my kid came home, with a note saying he would “benefit by checking in on himself more often.” 

The email I sent looked something like this: “He’s 7! What does that even mean? OGRGJSQw I'm in my forties and I don’t know how to “check in” on myself! GIWEGWDw. Warmly, WFOHTOB Rebecca.” (Yeah, I didn’t show up to parent/teacher interviews that year.)

So, NEVER AGAIN!

Anyways, long before there was cannabis-infused everything and before there were more dispensaries than Starbucks — one which took over one of my favourite clothing stores — there were numerous famous authors who found solace in cannabis and credit drugs to enhancing their writing.

So, to be or not to be stoned while writing? (It’s possible Shakespeare partook. Archaeologists tested fragments of 25 pipes found in the playwright's home. Eight tested positive for remnants of cannabis. (Alas, it’s not the 16th, century so it’s not like we can sit down and share a joint ask him!)

Lee Child, the bestselling thriller writer and a veteran stoner of 45+ years (so 1/3 of the dude’s life!) says smoking five nights a week led him to more than 70 million books sold. “I'm the poster boy to prove it doesn't do you much harm,” he said. (I tend to disagree because…what was I just writing about? I'm kidding!)

Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables high as a kite, and was part of a club called Club des Hashischins, along with many authors who believed smoking weed would expand the literary minds of writers. (Think of that next time you see the play!)

Stephen King may be the master of the horror genre and one hell of a prolific author. But while writing  Cujo (which still freaks the fuck out of me), he was so fucked up high and drunk the entire time, he has literally no memory of writing any part of it. None! Nada!

In his biography, he pretty much says he cannot remember writing, well, basically anything he published during the ’80s.

Joyce Carol Oates wrote at least 50 novels and countless short stories. When she was 75 years old, she published, “High,” a short story that follows an old widow who begins smoking cannabis after the death of her husband to process her grief. (On May 16, 2014, she tweeted, "Being stoned varies geographically, considerably.”)

Louisa May Alcott turns out to be a little woman who liked to get high. (Sorry, couldn’t help it!) Still celebrated and best known for writing Little Women, she once said, “Heaven bless hashish.” 

(According to some, she may have had a full-on addiction — addiction was just a concept in the 19th century — to opium and hash, using it intermittently for the rest of her life to help ease her pain of rheumatism.)

Maya Angelou, who died in 2014, and is one of the most quoted and prominent figures in history for her activism and contribution to the literary world…well, she, too, apparently, smoked with abandon. 

In her memoir Gather Together in My Name, the late poet declares cannabis as a longtime muse, writing about her first experience getting high like, “Walking on the streets became high adventure, eating my mother’s huge dinners an opulent entertainment, and playing with my son was side cracking hilarity. For the first time, life amused me.” She later credited marijuana with helping her overcome childhood abuse and used it weekly as a form of “creativity-generating therapy.”

In 2015, Catherine Hiller published Just Say Yes:  A Marijuana Memoir. She was 68 years old and had been smoking pot daily, which has “enhanced her life” for 50 years! 

“I use it [cannabis] for writing routinely and regularly. It helps me start the process. I don't think it makes me any more creative,” she told an interviewer while lighting a joint. “Every time I was pregnant I stopped immediately… I can tell you that the process is a lot easier when I start the writing process stoned.”

The New York Review of Books named author Susan Sontag, who died in 2004, one of the most influential critics of her generation. She smoked weed. 

Back in 1973, she was basically arguing the same debate we have today, saying, “I think a society which is addicted to a very destructive and unhealthy drug, namely alcohol, certainly has no right to censor the use of a drug which is much less harmful.”

However, she found weed too relaxing when it came to writing. “I use speed to write, which is the opposite of grass [cannabis]. Sometimes when I'm really stuck, I will take a very mild form of speed to get going again…sometimes when you’re stuck, it's very helpful,” she said.

One of my author friends has written numerous Canadian bestsellers. They are serious books, too! My friend starts their day popping half a Ritalin (that they get from another author friend who actually has a prescription for it.)

“I think every writer should automatically be given a prescription for Ritalin," my friend jokes. (I think!)  “I love it. I’ve been using it for at least ten years. I tried to stop. And I couldn't write a fucking thing! I couldn’t read either. I take it as soon as I wake up, I'm productive writing all day, and then I'll come down at night with weed.”

Ayn Rand apparently had a speed habit using Benzedrine — the first brand name for amphetamines — for decades. She was using while in a rush to complete The Fountainhead. 

(BTW I am not condoning or encouraging the regular use of prescription drugs, like speed or Ritalin, when unprescribed. I am simply fascinated with writers’ different routines and processes!)

And of course, there is the obvious, like Hunter S. Thomson, who famously said, “I have always loved marijuana. It has been a source of joy and comfort to me for many years. And I still think of it as a basic staple of my life, along with beer and ice and grapefruits. (Really? Grapefruits?) He wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas high AF. No kidding.

But does getting high actually help writing? Well, it’s debatable. There seems to be little to no actual data linking cannabis and creativity.

But why don’t more writers who are alive speak out on their cannabis use or non-use?

Unless, they can’t, of course, because they have the munchies and their mouths are full of Oreo Cookies. (Or grapefruit?)

xo

Rebecca

(P.S. If you’re friends with Kat Goldman’s parents, please don’t tell them you read this!)

P.P.S. Check out part two of this piece, where I interview a friend who decided in her mid-life to work full time at a dispensary. A must-read for anyone canna-curious!