My professor this year always said that you should write to see what it is you want to say, you shouldn’t write with what you want to say fleshed out because it won’t come out right. Not exactly sure what that meant but.... anyway. You should be spending way more time than is sane on any given essay. You should be brainstorming, editing, and rewriting things for a long time before your essay is ready, that’s why writing shouldn’t be easy