what i feel is so difficult about it all, is that i have lost the fluency of language - because i'm using someone else's, and one that is not familiar to me. i mean, have you thought why half the literary critics are so boring to read? their language is staid. on the other hand, those critics that speak - really speak - with a personal voice - who do not merely use the language that is there, available and necessary to his topic, those are a joy to read. and i'm not writing in my own voice anymore, but with the language i feel i need to use - a language that is - i feel - coming from outside of me and not from inside, so that i'm fighting it as i try to use it - and then all clarity is lost, the precision that i once had, is lost, so that the happiness of writing, yes - the happiness which comes from inside and is alive in the very words that you write - which words bring you happiness in turn - that process i've lost, since, the middle of third year. when i look at my essays, those i wrote as a first year, the ideas may be greener, but there was more control over the language - of course i tended to immoderate gushing and excessive emotion but - there was an ease there that i have lost since.