In the weeks since fresh allegations of Lance Armstrong’s use of performance enhancing drugs, I have felt more than a twinge of a guilty conscience. I live and work – nay! I eat, sleep and breathe in an industry that acknowledges use of performance enhancing drugs on almost a daily basis! I can no longer keep quiet. Finally I feel compelled to step forward and confess: the writing and publishing industry uses performance enhancing drugs, especially within the science fiction and fantasy genre.
Author writing spaces and publishing houses are dens of iniquity!
How many times has Anne Treasure of Momentum Books talked about leaving the office to search out dealer? Or complained because she can’t get her drug of choice delivered to the office? Anne’s drugs vary: I’ve seen her tweet about finding street dealers to supply her with a coffee fix, complaining about not being able to get delivery of confectionery and post pics of various alcoholic beverages before she’s consumed them.
[Excuse me while I slurp my hazelnut praline-flavoured long black with a dash of milk – as it’s before 9am I think it’s a tad early for anything stronger.]
UPDATE: Anne says:
@darkmatterzine Hiya, it’s actually @ml_harding that does all the coffee/choc-begging from the @momentumbooks account! 🙂 @johnbirmingham
— Anne Treasure (@annetreasure) October 17, 2012
So I’m confused… this is what comes from following too many people on Twitter… and not consuming enough performance enhancing drugs… NEED MOAR COFFEE.
@darkmatterzine @annetreasure keeps her chocolate habit secret. — John Birmingham (@JohnBirmingham) October 17, 2012
UPDATE ends.
John Birmingham enjoys a bit of a drinkies from the top shelf, throat-stripper to co-ordinate with his gravelly cyber-voice. When Birmo appeared on the First Tuesday Bookclub I realised his gravelly cyber-voice was all in my imagination, birthed from his avatars, his content and his snark; this voice doesn’t match the reality at all 😀 I still enjoy his snark and, personally, I think the voice in my head is way cooler than the reality so I’ll just wait for Birmo to catch up. I’m sure age and top shelf drinkies will improve his voice with age ;P Back on topic: Birmo wrote this about letting cyclists use performance enhancing drugs without constraint – perhaps his use of caffeine to stimulate the creative synapses is also tweaking his guilty conscience? His Blunty blog ends with this note: JB’s personal blog, where the drugs are free… er, no… where he’s been drug free for… er… oh, look, Cheeseburgergothic.com
Chris Garcia, Hugo Award winner and many-times nominee for his work on Drink Tank and THAT Hugo acceptance speech, confesses that his drugs of choice are Manhattans to drink and Twix to eat! The depravity! Chris’s confession causes this disreputable spotlight to centre on fanzine editors, putting this noble profession into disrepute.
[Like Lance Armstrong’s latest accuser, I’ll gloss over my own short-comings here and omit to mention the soji in my pantry and the bottle of Wise Men of Gotham Cabernet sent to my by Hachette Publishing on proud display on my kitchen dresser.]
Paul Weimer, whose many contributions to the SF genre include his own writings and contributions to other productions such as SF Signal, admits to consuming guinness, iced tea, dark chocolate and custard as his drugs of choice.
Jeffrey S. Kupperman is one of the more virtuous among us; he claims he does not drink alcohol at all and even omits to mention using caffeine as a drug of choice. However, Jeffrey claims his drugs of choice are root beer and Chocolove’s 77% dark chocolate bars.
Chocolate, as everyone knows, has serotonin, a ‘feel good’ chemical, so even Kupperman’s aspirations to virtue are somewhat tainted.
[Eh hem. I just need a little trip to the fridge – I’m sure I still have a few dark chocolate-coated gingers left in the box hubby gave me for my birthday.]
Seriously, chocolate does have serotonin but in minute quantities, but chocolate also usually contains additives like SUGAR in less minute quantities. That’s like cutting your weed with crack. I got that from Randling (a TV show on ABC Australia) last night – apparently cutting your weed with crack is a thing.
Bren Macdibble doesn’t eat sweets – sugar isn’t the drug of choice for this woman! – but she drinks red wine and coffee [ahhh, a woman after my own heart]
Elspeth Cooper, author of Morningstar shortlisted epic fantasy novel Song of the Earth (part 1 of a trilogy), confesses that she drinks wine, or tea. For confectionery, almost anything with chocolate. Or jellybeans. She <3 jellybeans.
[I’m not overly fond of jellybeans but if that’s her secret I’LL MAINLINE JELLYBEANS IF IT MEANS I CAN WRITE LIKE ELSPETH. See? This is how this performance enhancing is self-perpetuating!!! I’m not sure if I can give up my coffee in favour of tea, though… Hell, who am I kidding? If I was guaranteed to write a Morningstar shortlisted novel, I could replace coffee with tea.]
Finally, I must mention The Bloggess, aka Jenny Lawson, whose fondness for booze slushies is well-known. I’m sure I saw a post of Jenny’s once that gave a recipe for a booze slushie – which I’ve been planning to try – but now I’m looking for the recipe, do you think I can find the damn thing? I found this post about about drinking slushies though. (I think a wine slushie is like a snow-cone but with alcohol instead of sugar-based syrup.) Personally, I’d mainline wine slushies if it mean a guaranteed New York Times bestselling book like Let’s Pretend this Never Happened. I could continue naming and shaming notable authors and contributors to the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre, but I’m in desperate need of a caffeine fix – my coffee is growing cold while I type – so I will cease here. Rest assured that the writing and publishing industry, particularly the SFF genre, is guilty of rampant performance enchancing drug use. I’m thinking I need to change my drugs of choice to jellybeans and wine slushies, with a few manhattans thrown in; I already drink iced tea and dark chocolate is the BEST kind, so I figure I have them covered. Clearly coffee just doesn’t cut it in terms of performance enhancing drugs.
Not that I approve of performance-enhancing drugs. Not at all. I just want to compete on a level playing field…
UPDATE: Gillian Polack, editor, author and repeat-offender-PhD candidate, declares that she is out of the closet in her drug use. Gillian not only drinks copious quantities of caffeine in both tea and coffee, but she is a DEALER!!! She gives away fine dark chocolate at conventions. Gillian is actively promoting this culture of using performance enhancing drugs!
