Writer’s Reluctance

There is a whole medical and sociological literature about occupational diseases and their cures, but one of them is no nearer mitigation or cure than it was at the time of Homer or even before. This disease has nipped promising careers in the bud, retarded others beyond belief, brought dissension into happy homes and endless hours of sorrowful self-reproach to the sufferer, not to mention serious financial drawbacks. There is no general cure for these attacks; tragically, each must be solved on its own, ifitistobe solved at all. This dreadful disease is Writer’s Reluctance, and it affects anybody who ever had to set down a word on paper, be it only a three-word thank-you letter.

WR is a fascinating disease, for it develops a number of very different symptoms, as well as a strange form of low cunning in the sufferers. From personal experience, and from observation of men and women suffering from it, I have noticed that there is practically nothing the sufferer will do, or fail to do, to disguise his inability to take that very short walk to the typewriter or writing table and really settle down to work.

NH

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Nika Hazelton

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There is a whole medical and sociological literature about occupational diseases and their cures, but one of them is no nearer mitigation or cure than it was at the time of Homer or even before. This disease has nipped promising careers in the bud, retarded others beyond belief, brought dissension into happy homes and endless hours of sorrowful self-reproach to the sufferer, not to mention serious financial drawbacks. There is no general cure for these attacks; tragically, each must be solved on its own, ifitistobe solved at all. This dreadful disease is Writer’s Reluctance, and it affects anybody who ever had to set down a word on paper, be it only a three-word thank-you letter.

WR is a fascinating disease, for it develops a number of very different symptoms, as well as a strange form of low cunning in the sufferers. From personal experience, and from observation of men and women suffering from it, I have noticed that there is practically nothing the sufferer will do, or fail to do, to disguise his inability to take that very short walk to the typewriter or writing table and really settle down to work.