Writer's block and procrastination are common syndromes among young students. I suffered from them myself. They result mostly from the entirely artificial context in which most student writing takes place: a professor, with authority over your future prospects due to his/her ability to assign a grade, orders you to either (1) write an essay on a topic that he/she specifies, in which you may or may not have any real interest or opinion, (2) find your own topic (usually within constraints based on genre, or larger topic domain, or whatever). In the real world, outside of academia, such occasions seldom arise. Once you are free of college, you write because you have found something worth saying, and you are self-motivated to get it across clearly, in a manner that is adapted to the interests and concerns of your likely readership (not just one person, but a whole category of people who share your interests); and to do so with passion, so the reader will not just understand what you say, but actually "dig it."

So while you are under the academic yoke, my advice to you, the next time you are given a writing assignment, is simply to convert it into just such an occasion:

--Find something WORTH saying (this may take some serious mulling over--not just "what the teacher wants me to say" but what really matters to YOU);

--GET IT ACROSS by answering the five basic questions ANY reader would have: (1) What are you talking about? (2) What are you saying about it? (3) Why? (4) How so? (5) So what? (In this way, your essay will organize itself.)

--so the reader will DIG it! In general, if you can dig it, so will your reader. If your teacher can understand it, you will get a B. But if he/she can DIG it, you'll get an A.

But what's more important--you'll no longer be afraid of writing!