A drunken sot, on the quiet, produces essays (5)
I believe the answer is:
shots
'essays' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both acts as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I can't see?
'a drunken sot on the quiet' is the wordplay.
'a drunken' is an anagram indicator.
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'the quiet' becomes 'sh' (both can be said to tell someone to be quiet).
'sot' is an anagram of 'ots'.
'ots' put after 'sh' is 'SHOTS'.
'produces' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for shots that I've seen before include "See 2" , "Gunfire -- attempts" .)