Illustration by Salomé Gautier

Incredibly, this phrase popped into my head on the very first day of my vacation in Venice, Italy. A dream trip. My first real vacation in a little over eight years, since I started writing. And wrote I did, as you know. Every day. For four to six hours, sometimes more. Never taking a weekend off. A holiday. Nothing. I wrote like I was possessed, and I was possessed. Writing was my salvation.

Until this year my body told me to stop. It wasn’t having any of thi...