At least for me, the emotional swings and the working out problems through writing are intrinsically related – the other kinds of writing I do, which fall more into your category of being things I can whiteboard and such, don’t attract the same emotional reaction. I think it’s because, in my case, if I can whiteboard it, I basically have control over the material – I may have to solve some immense organisational puzzle to figure out, e.g., the order in which I need to discuss specific topics, or what kinds of evidence I need to outline, etc. But there is no underlying conceptual puzzle.

Working through the conceptual puzzles, though, imposes a massive emotional drain. In some ways, writing has an arbitrary relation to this – writing just happens, perhaps contingently, to have emerged as the means through which I sound out the problem – it functions as a kind of probe… It can usually get me to a certain point – generally, where I have a clear sense of the sorts of questions I need to answer, or the logical connections I need to make. At that point, it’s very much like something else kicks in and takes over…

As for why you write more here than at your place: I think that’s obvious – it’s the gravitational pull exerted by the sheer mass of words I spew out here on a daily basis – once you get into the orbit of this site, you can’t break free… ;-P

Still, while going to bed with large piles of books around you has a certain bohemian charm (I can truthfully claim that I’ve slept with Francis Fukuyama and Noam Chomsky at the same time), I’ve found that it can’t sustain me for the long haul, so I’ve had to grudgingly change my work habits. Like you, I’ve found that slow and steady is the superior way of organizing work that needs to take place regularly, although that won’t stop me from cursing the Protestant work ethic the next time I have to get up early.

Oh, and I like cafe work too. I really should get a regular job so I can work there more often, although you should see the way I shamelessly stay at the same cafe for hours despite only ordering one herbal tea in the morning.

Still, I can’t relate to your writing-related emotional swings. Perhaps I’m more fatalistic, but when I get stuck I just trust that my subconscious is at work and set about happily playing video games, secure in the knowledge that it’ll all come together somehow. And usually it does.

I also can’t relate to working out problems through writing. When I write, it’s almost always just me needing to put my thoughts to words. That, or I’ll stare at the same blank page while my mind is working through what I need to get done. If something is particularly thorny, I get out some paper and start plotting out my thoughts. If it’s particularly sticky, I may end up using diagrams. It helps me to draw the way a particular theory works and how it applies to my situation, and sometimes I feel that’s the only way I can really understand something complicated. Only when I’m satisfied that I’ve got an idea of what I want to write do I actually start.

Incidentally, I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m actually writing more on your blog than on mine. I really should save some of these writings, I might be able to make something more of them later.