One sometimes needs convincing that one can still write. Age makes one more self-conscious somehow. But that's not exactly it. It is more like a heightened awareness of what one is writing, somehow driving one to care more about the narrative audience than before. The loss is of a certain abandon, a certain freedom - a concern more with form than essence.

In defiance, in the rest of this post, I will just list some words I have recently grown to like. Not to the exclusion of the rest, just that I feel like doing so now.

normative

syncretic

ah, no. too much. the next word that came to mind was 'discursive'. this is one dark alley, however well-travelled by intrepid and erudite souls. maybe more later. scary word - triage.