Mightier than the What?

I'm having a hard time getting back into this whole paper writing thing. I remember by the end of the first term this year I was able to take almost any topic or idea and start pouring my brain out about it. Now I try to write and I just get stuck. I know that I've blogged in that time, and you'd think that it would help to keep my brain in the writing mode. Perhaps it's the style I'm having difficulty with. The way I blog isn't exactly in essay format. It's more of a conversational format, and occasionally in a nonfiction essay format. It would be cool if I could write another nonfiction essay. I mean, I know that I could any time I wanted to, but it's different when you have to turn it in. Or is it? I don't know what I'm thinking. Maybe it's just that I am not required to do it, so I spend my time doing other things.
Perhaps I'm losing my knack with a pen. I've always written my papers out by hand before I typed them. Part of the reason for that was because I wasn't very fluent with typing so I wasn't able to keep up with my thoughts nearly as quickly as I would have liked to. Now I do alright with that. I've come a long way in my typing in the last year.
The other reason that I always write my papers out by hand first is simply the feel. You can almost feel the words begin to fall out onto the page as your hand glides across the field of white followed by a tail of blue or black. I love the feeling of the motion. It's almost mystical the way the hand twists and circles and swoops. It's as though there is a direct connection between my thoughts and the movements of my hand.
True, my left-handedness does leave a smear, and my knuckles turn blue and black (from the ink). But there is just something strangely wonderful about seeing the work of the hands in its raw form.