Under Pressure: Writing in spite of it all

You know that scene in the original Star Wars movie where they are all stuck in the trash compactor? Chewbacca is yowling, and Han is blindly firing at something moving under the filthy water (which then ricochets off the walls), and the walls themselves slowly grind their way in toward our heroes. They climb the piles of slippery, nasty garbage, desperately seeking something to brace against the walls to stop them from being crushed to death. There appears to be no escape.

Yeah, my life is fe...