Euphoria and Gremlins by Ann Brashares

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My husband, Jacob Collins is a painter. He works downstairs and I work upstairs and we live and raise our family in between. Our work is obviously quite different, but it has been fascinating, over the years, to figure out the many things we have in common. One of them is this thing I'll call creative euphoria. It usually occurs after you've worked for many hours in a row, most often in the wee hours of the morning when there are none of the daytime rigors to check your mood, when you haven't talked to anyone other than yourself in a long while.

So in my case, my mood elevates, my heart starts beating faster, and the ideas start pouring in from every direction. I can't type fast enough to get them all down. I have so many ideas, so much intention for every word I write, that the words seem to heat up and glow. It's like I am a glassblower--as long as the glass is liquid and searing hot, the colors are intense.

The trouble is, the colors change and dim when the glass cools and hardens. I find that when I get up the next day and reread what I've written with a cool mind, the words don't glow anymore. They don't seem to contain the intensity I thought I had put into them. They just kind of sit there.

My husband describes this phenomenon as "the gremlins." He says that when he goes to sleep after a euphoric night of work, the gremlins creep into his studio and paint over all of his brilliant work and by the morning they make it just regular.

There is a feeling of frustration when the euphoria ebbs. You feel like your great work was stolen from you. But then, of course, you have to wonder whether it was ever so great, or whether you were just tired and manic enough to think so. It's like when you drink too much and you think the things you say are extremely clever, but they probably aren't.

Sometimes I think I'd like to sell my books with a blowtorch or maybe a bottle of vodka. But the torch would incinerate the book and the vodka would just give you a hangover. These are not lasting pleasures.

When you work with a sense of calm and keep your critical faculties with you, it's not as much fun at the time, but it feels a lot better in the morning.

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