Feeling a bit tumbled

Last week was great. I got up early each day and did homework in the morning. I got all my Friday homework done Wednesday night, and Thursday morning I was astonished to find that I finished 80% of the chemistry problem set in just a couple of hours. After class I understood how to do the remaining two problems. I was quite happy with this state of events because I knew I'd be getting topics for two papers this weekend.

Friday things started to crack a little bit. I found an issue with my chemistry problems, which I corrected fairly easily, but it unsettled me. I got not one topic from humanities, but five. I tried to work on it, but found it hard to pick a topic. The philosophy topic came Saturday, and was much easier to pick (between two) and looks like an easier task to write. I put in my hours over the weekend that I'd planned to, trying to draft the papers, but the ideas just weren't flowing. I kept brainstorming on Sappho and Pandora, my two tentative favorite topics, but I just couldn't get more than about a paragraph of connections out of either one. Then I read the Herodotus for today, and I think I may prefer the topic based on that overall. I got up this morning and started plinking away on identity theory and dualism, which is going better now, but in the morning, it seemed like again I didn't have nearly 1500 words to say about it.

Still, I feel a bit "tumbled." My intentions and my willpower are still good, but my mojo seems to be off a little bit. This is what I don't like about papers: I'm dependent, so to speak, on the Muses. With science, a problem might be more difficult than expected, but as long as I put in the time and go to office hours if needed, I can be pretty sure it will get done. When I write, I'm always worried that despite my best efforts, I won't come up with anything at all.