If Your Writing Goes To Sleep Because Of “Writer’s Block,” Here’s Advice From Me, An Indefatigable Blogger – Learning From Stephen Covey And Franz Kafka

If you have “Writer’s Block,” or any trouble beginning or continuing to write, as a professional journalist, science writer, or someone asked to address a group, here’s a story from long ago we can all learn from. 
(image from musicgateway.com)

We can all learn from the bad. And – No matter the similarity of the first name, FRANZ KAFKA is not one of my favorite novelists. But here I am reading ANN’s report, “Franz Kafka Letter, In Which He Talks Of Writer's Block, Heads To Auction” (Author Not Named, 27 June 2024, ABS-CBN News, news.abs-cbn.com):

Kafka, one of the 20th century's greatest writers, known for works such as "The Trial" and "The Metamorphosis," wrote the letter to Austrian poet and publisher Albert Ehrenstein, in what is believed to be a response for a request to contribute to (the) literary journal "Die Gefährten". In the one-page letter in German and signed just "Kafka", the Prague-born novelist says he has not written anything in three years.

A writer stopped from writing for 3 years because of “Writer’s Block!” A terrible thing that can happen, whether you are a much-respected writer, columnist in a newspaper, or blogger like me.

Nota Bene: I have never had writer’s block!

From 2000 to 2007, I was blogging for the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and ICRISAT collected my works and published 7 books of mine. No writer’s block there! I was already 60 years old in 2000 when ICRISAT recruited me as a writer from home (WFH) communicator – I had already learned my lessons on how to avoid writer’s block 25 years before that! (Thankfully, that ICRISAT recruitment was a happy 8 years of WFH for me.)

And since 2000, I have blogged not only for ICRISAT but for the PH Department of Agriculture (DA), and for myself even as I pursue my personal “campaign” for more intelligent and more science-based agriculture, some 50,000 articles of different lengths, from 517 to 50,000 words – you can safely conclude that I know what I am talking about!

Not anymore me, but you, whether engaged by an office or not, writer’s block can trouble you. Here’s my advice every single time you encounter writer’s block:

Steps to choose from:
_/ Stop & do something else, anything.
_/ Grab a book, any book, and read anywhere.
_/ Call someone on your phone, anyone.
_/ Browse Facebook, anywhere.
_/ (If nothing works, call it a day!)

The thing is, to unblock your Writer’s Block, find yourself something to do that will distract you from what you are writing. Anything at all.

Finally, we can learn from Stephen Covey, American educator, author of the very popular “The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People” (published by Free Press, 1989):

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” In this case, the lesson to unblock your Writer’s Block I pick up is this: “to re-schedule your priorities!”@517