I really should be writing a paper on Henry Adams, but I just had to stop and write this down.

The best writing just happens.

Forcing it drains it of all its originality and shine. Isn't it a pity that so often, we students have to write so-and-so many words on such-and-such a subject, to be turned in by this-and-this date. Without this framework, most of us wouldn't get anything done, which is necessarily a desirable result in the working world.

Why, or how, these little moments of inspiration come, I cannot say. I'm rather frightened that they come more often than I think, and I let them slip by rather than dropping everything and writing what is trying to get out of my head and on paper.

I know my own writing very well. It's boring -- needs editing, which it (unfortunately) rarely gets -- it doesn't get to the point because it wonders what really is the point.

I also know that sometimes I start scribbling away, or typing, and suddenly lean back and realize that something better has come. Calculably how, I can't say. But there it is, and by golly, it will have my name on it.

This has to be plagiarism, of a sort my mind steals from wherever better writing comes.