The need to write

I have a horrible night. I spend the whole time running, dreaming that I have too much to do and too little time in which to do it. It’s that feeling that gives me migraines, and I’ve been feeling migrainous on and off for 8 days now. (No chocolate, no wine. Just unadulterated reality.)

I explain all this to Frog this morning at breakfast and as I do so I realise that I need to start writing again. That is what the dreams were telling me.

Ever since I stopped writing (a few weeks ago) I’ve been running around like a headless chicken. Do I garden or sew? Do I feed the birds, do my washing, wash up? Should I take that bag of old clothes to the charity shop or should I go to Homebase and replace our 1960s’ iron which has started to burn things because its thermostat has gone awry and even Frog has given up on it? I’m overwhelmed by choice. I’ve lost my centre, my raison d’être.

The need to write, I realise, is part of me, like the need to eat, or sneeze. I ignore it at my peril.