April, it seems, is the hardest month. I come out of the blocks in January committed to making the most of the year, augmenting myself around the academic timetable and the knowledge I’ll have a break over Easter. Last year I wrote 200,000 words between January and April on a number of projects—the novel, book chapters, journal articles, journalism, a report, peer feedback. This was not counting the blog posts, emails, morning pages, feedback to students and sundry other updates. Then when April 6th came, as I was staying with friends in Falmouth, I opened my laptop one last time almost as if it were some medieval drawbridge and I the only soldier pulling on the rope, and I sat there in Café Nero at around 730am in the morning and I just could not write a single other word. My calf muscles had just snapped the day earlier out on a coastal run, and now my mind had gone too.