I arrived into Scotts Valley this afternoon in a bit of a daze. I didn’t sleep during the 14 hours from Sydney to LA, then didn’t eat in LA while waiting for my connecting flight to San Jose (which in hindsight was a mistake, even with airport food. I should have forced myself to eat something. Sitting in the lounge, my head was spinning like when you lay down to sleep while still drunk. But my eyes were open and I was sober. Freaky!)

Fell asleep before the little prop-jet took off and woke up an hour later as the wheels touched down in San Jose. Chalk up 1 hour sleep in 24, woohoo!, and for the next hour or so while I drove up 17 to get to Scotts Valley and checked into the hotel I felt pretty good. But then I saw the bed and the reptilian brain took over, driving me under the covers.

Fortunately, I had the foresight to organise a wake up call for 6pm, as I really wanted to go listen to Rudy Rucker talk at the Capitola Book Cafe. As hard as it was to drag myself up after only 3 hours sleep, it was worth it. He read from Mathematicians In Love for 30 minutes or so, then took questions.

While answering the questions, I noticed a few times he was talking about the characters in the book as if he was an observer, and not the author. He’d say things like “That character was really cool” or “she’s really funny”, as if these characters weren’t his creations.

When I asked him about this, he basically said that when he’s writing and really firing, that’s what it’s like. That when you are really focussed and working on the absolute limit of your capabilities, it’s impossible to predict what’s going to come out. Impossible because by definition, if you are working at the edge of your capabilities, then you don’t have the spare cycles to look forward, it comes out the same moment you think it. (Hmmm, his explanation seemed to have more poetry than this paragraph. Guess that’s why he’s the author)

This struck me as such a great explanation for the zone you get into, if you’re lucky, when writing code. Have you ever come up for air after some intensive coding and had a moment of almost-surprise at something you’ve created, some algorithm or pattern or structure, almost as if you didn’t realise that you created it? It’s in those rare moments, the “narcotic moments of creative bliss” as he called them (quoting from some movie I must now try and see) that all the frustrating, boring, repetitive parts of software development fall away and I’m reminded why I’d still write code even if I won the lottery.

My soul is somewhere over the Pacific, I’m tired (and will be for a few more days yet) and have a dull headache, but sitting here in my hotel room unable to sleep, that thought makes me smile.

Update : Rudy blogged about the reading here, including photos (you’ll recognise me by the suitcases under my eyes).