Design tips for students: “Write drunk“

I remember vividly, years ago, a radio interview with the poet Miller Williams about the process of writing and revising. He said (as I recall) that the first draft of a poem usually comes to him all-at-once. When he’s inspired, he said, the ideas come so quickly that he can’t write fast enough to keep up. In this state of furious activity he is practically delirious, never pausing to reflect or evaluate—just creation. Then, after some time and distance, he revises the poem, over and over, with an editor’s detachment. This takes months. He said: “Write drunk and revise sober.”

( I found it! here, at about 3:30. My recollection was pretty good, although he says it better.)

I like to share this story with students in architecture studios. I endorse ‘writing drunk’—creating very freely, quickly, intuitively at first. But afterwards it is critical to stand back from your own work and evaluate it, and ‘revise sober’. To achieve distance is really hard, especially for young people, because of ego and ownership. And that’s why we have pin-ups and open critiques, to help students be detached from their drunken creative works, so they can revise sober.

If the drunk/sober analogy is insensitive, Stephen King said it this way: “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.” (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)

●          ●          ●

Also written for students:
Architectural Forms
The Master's Thesis Playbook
Using an Art Museum