Today's one of those days when I feel like my brain still hasn't woken up, five hours after my eyes opened for the day. Bleagh. At least I had a wonderful breakfast as consolation - Patrick and I made banana muffins late last night (using Karina Sumner-Smith's fabulous recipe!) so I ate my first banana muffin as breakfast with my morning latte. Then I cuddled with Maya on the couch for about half an hour, eyes closed, and she went to sleep in my arms, which was lovely. She's such a solid bundle of jumping, kicking energy most of the time, I really love it when she gets sleepy and snuggly.

Because I was so tired, I thought I probably wasn't going to be able to do a big writing session this morning, especially because I didn't even know what exactly was going to happen next in the novel. But I'd gotten grounded enough in the morning writing habit over the past several days that I finally sat up (disappointing Maya), put on my writing tiara and grabbed my notebook and fountain pen just in case...and sleepily, quietly, without thinking too much about it, I wrote over 1,000 words very quickly. It was kind of a revelation. I've built writing up over the past several months into such a struggle of epic proportions, and when it has worked, I've assumed it was because of my great efforts, etc. Getting a (for me) good amount of writing done this morning without feeling energetic or inspired or even particularly motivated - just by relaxing and thinking, 'Well, just write something, it doesn't have to be that much or that good' - or in other words, "writing as a process of 'taking it down', rather than 'thinking it up'", as Julia Cameron would say - shocked me into realizing how silly that's been. If I'm feeling tired or uninspired, that sure doesn't mean I can't write. It just means I don't have the energy to role-play myself into an epic role.

But I like what I wrote today at least as much as anything I've written with more off-paper drama. In fact, it all always turns out about the same, whether I agonize, think of myself as doing something really, really scary or difficult, or Just Do It.

It's a little embarrassing, but also a relief.

In other news, I went ahead and made myself an author page on the Feminist SF wiki after all, partly based on Maura McHugh's very thought-provoking comment on yesterday's post. I've never written or edited a wiki before, so I struggled and couldn't quite manage the formatting, but luckily, within a couple of hours, someone else had edited it into beautifully formatted shape. Thank God for the collaborative wiki model!