What is worst, what is most wretched, is being almost ready to write. A horrible day dawns when the prospect of writing hangs over you like a cloud from which you are afraid you might never emerge. You know you will do it, you know you will commit. You know that by the end of the day you will be wrung out, speechless, barely human.

Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self-…, loc. 45