I’ve realized since coming to Oxford that my writing process is considered quite strange. I often go through at least three to four full drafts of work before I start to think about grammar, word choice and all those juicy details. In fact, my first draft is a ‘free-write’ of everything I think on the topic I’m writing about. As strange as my process is, it means that I usually have a full draft before most of my colleagues , though my first draft will probably require far greater editing/rewriting than their first draft. But I find this ‘free-write’ process not only incredibly enjoyable, but also essential. All students in the humanities know that you don’t REALLY know what you’re really even striving to say until you’ve finished the final sentence of your first draft. To write the first draft, I usually put on good music and then just start writing with the rule that I can’t stop for a good two hours and by then I will have all my ideas out in some sort of logical order.  Once it’s over, I’m exhausted. Try writing for even ten minutes non-stop. It’s not easy. It demands a state of intense concentration. But there’s a thrill. It has speed. It has drive. It takes on a power of its own. Soon you find yourself sitting behind the wheel, just taking it in, enjoying the ride, the view, only occasionally making a move to make sure that words don't jut out too far from the lane.

But this time it’s different. I can’t start. I just don’t have the energy right now. I started out in the library, and couldn’t get through a paragraph. Now I’m sitting in a coffee shop, an Americano and vanilla pastry later, I’ve barely moved through a page without stopping from mental weariness. How will I ever turn this in by tomorrow? Everything in my life has become so exhausting. I’m climbing to get to the top of a slide, and with every step I’m finding that the ladder is getting taller and taller.