With NaNoWriMo or National Novel-Writing Month getting underway this weekend, writers all over the world are doubtless concerned about the prospect of facing writer’s cramp, writer’s block (dare we say it?), and the other occupational hazards that lie in wait for those who live their lives by the pen. Here are ten unusual words that sum up the writing experience, or our attitudes to writing, in one way or another…

Cacoethes scribendi. Let’s kick off with some Latin. Why not? This phrase comes from the Roman writer Juvenal and means ‘an irresistible desire to write’. Well, sort of. The term appears in Juvenal’s Satires and is borrowed from ancient Greek, where the first word meant ‘bad habit’ or ‘malignant disease’. In other words, the desire to write is a kind of compulsion, or disease – an addiction for which there is no known cure. Which brings us to…

Hypergraphia. This…