07 March 2017

Stage Fright for Writers

I’m a writer. I sculpt words like clay. Words spill from my pen/fingers almost effortlessly, at least most of the time. I am almost physically incapable of writing a ‘short email’ -- they’re usually a minimum of two pages long, despite my best efforts. Words are my currency. Words are my lifeblood. Whether blogs, Facebook, emails, novels, short stories, notes, ideas... I am writing almost from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed.

Why then, when I sit down to write an academic paper -- even on a topic I’m interested in and have all the sources for -- do the words die on my fingertips? Why then is my writing voice suddenly silenced and I couldn’t think of the simplest of sentences if my life depended upon it? Why then does the topic suddenly inflate to such gargantuan proportions that mere words can no longer begin to encompass it?

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