On writing an expository essay

I remember sitting down to write essays when I was in high school. It seemed very easy. It was the same kind of essay I've written a hundred times over: the expository essay. Whether it was on "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde", "Frankenstein", or (believe it or not) "Peter Pan", it was the same familiar paper that I had to write over and over again. I became familiar with the tone and voice I had to assume as a writer of exposition. I became familiar with how to construct my essay so as not to leave any loop-holes in my arguments. I knew what it meant to provide my arguments with its blood supply: the thesis.
When I sat down to write this essay, however, I met my worst enemy: the blinking cursor on the frighteningly white screen. It blinked almost as if it was mocking me; poking fun at my inability to start writing. I'll be honest, I had no idea where to start.
"Should I start with background? Then I could tie things together. Should I skip that and dive straight into the poems?" Unfortunately for me, I had misheard the instructions to avoid background information.
"I put in a lot of background info into my essay..."
"Why's that?"
"I assumed I could..."
"You assumed? Isn't that interpretation?"
I had never written an essay where all we had write about was mere and absolute fact. Seemed simple at first. When I got down to it, it was everything but simple. It forced me to use a voice I had never used in writing before: one of neutrality, one of just stating what is. This was something surprisingly foreign to me.
In my confusion, I lost touch with the job at hand. I began to think too much and forgot the basic art of writing a good essay. After all the time I had spent thinking of a good way to start, I ended up doing the opposite of what I had to do. In my attempt to construct this expository essay, I simply forgot what I had learned. I started on a wrong note and I clumsily enough ignored a simple rule of thumb in essay writing: the use of examples. Thats right, I wrote my entire essay without any examples, cutting short the worth of the essay and the hardcore facts readers need to assume my information is credible.
In short, I was given what seemed and what should've been an easy exercise. This simple exercise made me look like I was writing an expository essay for the first time. This exercise showed what it means to write without trying to come up with something to impress, and on focusing on the things that sometimes seem to be unimportant.