How I feel while writing...

I'm alternating between feelings of extreme excitement to extreme concentration to extreme dizziness on a minute-by-minute cycle as I begin the oh-so-tentative early stages of writing my thesis. Anne Lamott is kind of a prop for me right now, because this book is really, really good and is making me feel just the slightest bit less crazy for wanting to spend all my time chasing after a novel, road-runner-and-coyote style. Also she says this about creative writing workshops, which I find despairingly accurate - although, as a side note, I've been pretty lucky with writing groups in my short career thus far, at Western and Humber and now Concordia, because there have always been a few people who prop them up. Still, I think she's got it mostly right:

At best, they will say that the story would work better if you rewrote it in the past tense, unless it is already in the past tense, in which case they will suggest the present, or that you should try writing in the first person or, if it is in the first person, in the third. At worst, they will suggest that you have no visible talent whatsoever and should not bother writing anything ever again, even your name.

She's also got it right when she talks about the fact that when you're writing, "You feel not only totally alone but also that everyone else is at a party." This is the REAL reason why writing groups are essential: not so much for actual criticism and editorial support, but more for basic, old-fashioned MENTAL HEALTH. Example: I am able to work well today and (hopefully) tomorrow because I'm going to a party tomorrow night which I happen to know will be frequented by many writers attempting the very same thing as me. We will drink our beer and ask each other how it's going, delicately and in an undercover-spy sort of way. And we will all feel relieved that, at least for the moment, no one will be expecting us to be at our desks churning out page after page of sparkling prose for next week's workshop.

Anyway, I happen to be feeling quite good about it all today, and Tycho is a giant help because he has spent all morning sleeping first on the radiator here beside me, which warms him up to t0asty degrees, then on my lap, which warms ME up to toasty degrees. As a muse, he is quite perfect. I think perhaps he will be chiefly recognized in my acknowledgements.
"And, most especially, thanks to Tycho - who kept me company, kept me warm, and kept me awake at three a.m., when my best ideas struck."