When I was younger and first started writing a lot I was a pretty typical teenager. I was full of angst and far too many rhyming couplets. And on top of that I was a burgeoning smoker.

I can remember sitting outside, in the park, under a tree with a cigarette in one hand and a pen in the other and scribbling my amateur prose down on a ruled page in a spiral notebook. It made me feel like an adult. I felt like I was channelling the writing spirits of ages gone by in smoky bars or on patios in Europe. Although those spirits certainly weren’t reflected in my writing.

I was relaxed, inspired, writing and loving it. The cigarettes were part of my creative process. I was able to float away to a new and wonderful place and just be. It was just as amazing as it sounds. I would take a drag and then write as many words as I had ready in my pen as I exhaled. The cigarette would burn down to the filter before I crushed it out and continued to create.

As I got a little older I smoked while I drank coffee and did homework in college or wrote more bad poetry or read books and the newspaper. It was part of the equation. That’s just the way it was done. I liked it.

Even recently as I was working on my still untitled and in progress superhero story I was smoking and writing. This time in my small apartment in the only place I was allowed to light up, the bathroom. It was perfect in a very weird kind of way. I was able to sit on the floor, use the toilet lid as a desk top and smoke as I thought and wrote and brought a character to life. Heaven.

And that brings us to now, day 6 of my personal stop smoking campaign, 4:13 am May 26, 2010. I’ve been writing for the last 6 hours, almost non-stop. This is the 4th blog piece I’ve written in that time. I’ve tweeted, updated my facebook status and edited and reviewed older pieces and new ideas. And I haven’t had a single cigarette.

It has been weird. I’ve had cravings. I’ve looked over at the bathroom door and thought about going in for a puff. But I have not. I am now more than 125 hours smoke free and I think I’d like to keep it that way.

So that means I’ll be working on a new formula from here on out. It will be trial and error. It may take some time. It will probably be something that isn’t so cool or grown-up. But in the end, I’m hoping that it will work for me.

And maybe it will even yield better results than the old days.

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Joshua Murray

creator of content, daddy blogger, writer, coffee drinker, fan of the Batman. proud mo bro. prouder dad.