It’s late. You should’ve been in bed hours ago, you have to be up in the morning. You don’t bother to brush your teeth – they’ll still be there tomorrow. You climb into bed, switch off the lamp, and close your eyes.

Then, with wholly predictable timing, you’re hit with inspiration. A singularly fantastic idea, perhaps the best idea you’ve had in months. It’s clever. It’s funny. It’s good. You begin to smile – you can’t wait to write it down.

But if you sleep on it, the idea might drift away. Forget just a small aspect of the idea and you’ve lost what you had, what it was that made you smile. It would make sense to get that idea down now, while it’s still fresh in your mind.

No. It’s really late. You really should try and sleep, you have to be up in a couple of hours. Go to sleep, that’s the mature thing to do.

But… already, you can feel the idea start to ebb out of your consciousness. If you don’t get it down now, it’ll be gone forever.

The bed is really comfortable.

This is torture for a writer.