First things first: I gave blood today (Wednesday) for the first time! Duncan was doing it and my schedule was the same as his so I figured I may as well. It was kinda cool, in an ow-my-arm-hurts-in-a-weird-sore-way-will-this-needle-come-out-soon-please way. I’ll post a picture within the next couple dozen hours. (It won’t be gross.)

Second things second: I am reflecting upon the creative process. By this, I mean: I am attempting to write an essay. This is the third essay for my English class. It is due tomorrow (to a good approximation, at least – there are some complicated details). I’ve been thinking of things to write about, and referencing the text of the novel I’d like to write my topic on, for several days, and I even emailed my TF with a bunch of the ideas I’d collected. So, armed with a whole bunch of jotted-down observations, the page numbers referencing my favorite quotes, and a very vague idea of what my thesis might sort of be, I sat down four hours ago ready to write my essay.

This was a bad idea.

I know this because I did essentially the same thing for my first essay. I never really finished it, because I wasn’t able to write anything. I didn’t have a solid idea of exactly what I was going to do when I jumped into writing it, and as a result I sat staring at the mostly-blank text document for literal hours. The smallest temptations become irresistible distractions when you’re a little sleepy (or perhaps just caffeine-jittery) and don’t know really what you’re writing about. But when you’ve set out to write your essay and then go to sleep and then turn the essay in as soon as you wake up, it seems like the only good idea is to just write – there’s no time to stop and go back and outline your thoughts in detail! So you press on, but those distractions just get bigger.

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