English majors can crank out 10-page papers with ease right? Wrong.
I am an English major that always seems to have writer's block. When I am assigned a paper it takes me days to even think of a simple topic for my rough draft. When given free reign to choose my topic I will be anxious for days. The idea of the paper eats away at my every thought. The stress of the paper is the only thing that I can talk and think about.
I locked myself in my bedroom for four hours last week telling myself that I was going to come up with a good topic for my paper. Four hours came and went and I came up empty handed once again. Even now as I tried to think of a topic for my next article for The Odyssey I struggle for hours, getting more frustrated every minute, until my phone tells me that it is almost 1:30 in the morning. So I figured why not write about writer's block and how ironic it is that my (second) major is English.
Reading? That's no problem! Give me 20 books to read a week and I will gladly take that over a 6-page paper assignment.
To some people writing comes so easily and the words flow onto the page without even the slightest thought or worry. If you are one of those people then I truly envy you. I wish I knew why writing was so terribly hard for me. It's not that I don't have a lot to say. The problem is that I have a hard time conveying what I want to say in the right words. I have too many ideas swirling around in my brain and can't find a way to correctly put them into words. You may be thinking that I am a procrastinator because if you put enough time and effort into the paper it'll come out great, right? I can assure you that I am the furthest thing from a procrastinator. I am a planner, a list maker, and a firm supporter of being on time. I am known for being too uptight. I will complete a minor homework assignment a week in advance because I'm weird and can be excessively orderly. I am willing to put the work in but time and time again I get let down by my own brain and its inability to come up with substantial thoughts for major papers.
I often wonder (and sometimes hope) that other English majors struggle like I do!
