It hurts, so much, Boo-boo, and I have no idea why. I’m talking to my dog, who sighs from her spot on the sofa.

I don’t know, she seems to say, maybe you should take me for a walk.

I jump a little and run into the kitchen and put on the kettle.

I’ve just come across a novel that is exactly what I need to read to help further with the background for the novel I am writing. It keeps happening. Serendipitous events continue one after another as soon as I focus on this story.

It’s frightening, it hurts, it makes me cry, and worst of all, it makes me stop. It makes me find other things to do that are not part of the thing, the thing that is happening.

Stopping makes me feel safe, but not good safe. Bad safe. Dead safe.

I’m trying to write about this feeling now because I want to get through it. I want to let the universe do what it is trying so hard to do, let it help me.

But it is quite terrifying, and that doesn’t make sense. It hurts. Why does it hurt? And it doesn’t hurt in a real way, it hurts in an imaginary way. It hurts in a way that makes it easy for me to say to myself: What is all the fuss about? Are you hungry? Do you have a home? Do you have books? Do you have money? And I have all these things. I have everything I need. I have time to write, to read, to research, to travel. I have it all, so what is it that happens when I make a little breakthrough that will lead me forward in this venture and I find myself jumping, with tears in my eyes, saying: It hurts, and it really does hurt somewhere inside?

I realise it is quite frightening to ask this question here, in this blog. Maybe everything is frightening, and truly being alive is being in a state of fear, and if there is nothing to be frightened of, then something is invented.

I’m staring at the screen now, thinking about how to end this. I’m not feeling any better, but maybe that’s OK. I’ll make coffee and sit and read the book I’ve found, and if it stops raining I’ll follow Boo’s advice and take her for a walk.