This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Becoming blocked is a hazard of my profession. Commonly referred to as "writer's block," it's a condition in which whatever passes for the mind of a writer finds itself temporarily bereft of inspiration.

Staring at a blank page or screen can be daunting when all you have going on in your head is cricket noise. Or so I've heard. People with issues like mine always have something going on in their heads.

It isn't a question of whether we have anything to say, but rather whether we should actually say it.

I've heard of extreme cases in which writers have become permanently blocked, but most of these later were determined to be symptoms of physical death.

I do get lazy. I'm also easily distracted. And I have written some columns while under the influence of drugs, the most recent being "medicinal" weed. But none of those is an actual form of writer's block.

While I realize that any number of people cling to the hope that I will become blocked (in any of its various forms), the truth is that it hasn't been a problem for me. I doubt it will be, at least not while I'm alive.

It helps that I'm naturally full of $#*!. Happily for me, so are you. That combination makes my job so easy. Writing is all about exploring this universal human condition.

Take "A Tale of Two Cities," "Little Women" and "Moby-Dick." Those classics have, at their heart, human fallibility.

This is true even if the writing is nonfiction or technical ­— as in how to build, grow, invent or modify stuff that won't hurt us, and how often we get it wrong.

If you disagree, then you've never tried to put something together by following the enclosed written directions. There's a lot of human drama in "folding slot A into slot B, taking care not to disturb tab C, which could lead to tab D exploding and parts of slides E and F poking your eye out."

There's never a shortage of subject matter for a real writer. Readers don't always understand this. Neither do some writers.

Other writer • "How do you avoid writer's block?"

Me • "I go to church."

Doesn't matter which church. There's always something to comment on in groups of people who espouse lofty principles but rarely do as well living up to them as they might think.

If you're anti-religious, don't get too excited just yet. The same holds true for any people who congregate (in person or online) for the purpose of congratulating themselves on how smart, spiritual, attractive, skillful or politically relevant they are over everyone else.

It can take time to discover just how full of crap you are, or were. Nothing announces this more eloquently than keeping a personal journal and then reading your thoughts years later. It's how I learned what an idiot I am.

There is a drastic cure for writer's block. It's called a "deadline" — as in having an editor catch you staring at a blank screen and bellow that your stuff better be on his desk in 30 minutes. Inspiration then comes quickly.

Here, I'll prove it:

"Becoming blocked is a hazard of my profession. Commonly referred to as…"

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.