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With World Cup mania starting, I’ve been thinking of that old cliché where the coach informs their players not to get laid before the big game, with the idea that you need to save up energy for a better performance. As an amateur soccer player I can reveal… it’s kind of true. I’ve lost more than one game in finals where I watched our best player show up, googly-eyed with love. Her game off the field was good, but on the field that night… very weak.
This made me wonder if this is true for writing as well.
Now, we’re in a cultural moment that’s adverse to mixing talk of sex and career, or even to speak about the sex in our work. But if you know me—pause for laughter—it’s a topic I refuse to leave in the ownership of old-school chauvinist novelists. So I asked myself: have I too sat at the keyboard and put up a “Not now, babe, I’m writing” hand?
I started doing personal math and compared it against the dates of my Word files and some tracking apps. It turns out I wrote my last two novels not entirely abstinent, but definitely during cooler-than-usual times.
It looked like I did choose writing, when needed, and now I can say anecdotally: doing it does get in the way of writing. It makes sense. We only have so much physical and emotional energy, and our writing requires intense memory work drawing on all five senses. We’re locked in a relationship with our characters. (Not to mention clocking long chair hours.)
If you’re partnered this is probably a discussion to have, if you haven’t already. For singles there are lots of ways to deplete your energies—like trying too hard to get some—and it can impact our pages. And for those who are abstinent by choice it may be some other activity taking away your vital forces.
Is it time this week to say “not tonight, honey” to it all? See if you can fall in love with your book instead.