Since Jeff was thoughtful enough to provide a preface, I thought I’d offer my two sober bits well before the drinking. I believe all the necessary ingredients for the Burgess cocktail (Hangman’s Blood) are in the bar. I just need to get some stout. Given the remarkable elements contained within this beverage, I truly believe that elation of some kind will be had.

Normally when I write, I eschew all substances, with the possible exception of coffee. I’ve never understood the idea that writing is aided in some sense by being blotto. But I suppose it’s up to each and every writer. Faulkner is reported to have kept a bottle of whiskey by his desk. But I should also note that Richard Yates, one of the most profound alcoholic writers of all time, never once sipped while he was crafting his work during the day.

The question then is what can come from all this. My guess is not much at all, save some paeans to lonelniess and some astonishing leaps in logic. This would suggest that NaDruWriNi, in addition to functioning as the obverse of NaNoWriMo, has been brilliantly engineered as a grand ironic exercise. An extremely strange collaborative experiment that involves people staying in and drinking on a Saturday night, and then recording their experiences.

I should also warn readers daring to peruse tonight’s entries that I’ve been in a poetic mode of late, contemplating, in particular, Robert Herrick’s bawdy epigrams (a rose protruding from white indeed) and Thomas Gray’s dilemma of unlived lives and “mute inglorious Miltons.” Whether any of this will manifest itself here remains to be seen.

Because I have to get up early tomorrow, tonight’s drinking will commence at 6:00 PM PST and the first entry shortly after that. (For those who wish to follow along, the category tag is here.) Please feel free to contribute ideas and topics to write about. And be sure to encourage the other fine participants to keep on trucking.

Interestingly enough, Abroad Abroad reports that NaDruWriNi has made Craig’s List.

Cheers!