My Journey to Becoming an Author 3

Somebody He-e-e-e-el-l-lp!  My Brain is not working!
There are times a writer experiences what is known in some circles as Writer Block, in such instance you cannot just write a thing because your brain is not working. It is not only authors but every other person on the street.
Why Writer Block?
The human body is a complex machine that operates more than seventy percent independently with its Central Control Unit (CPU) in the brain. There is very little you can do to control your brain whose activities include directing blood flow, intestinal movements for digestion, excretion, backing up information and signals received through the eyes, ears and touch. It is also concerned with the repair and renewal of cells and alerting the body to rest and relax.
In the face of these enormous functions there are times the brain have things to do which it considers more important than write a novel or textbook, or it feels that it has done enough and need to relax and backup information of what it has already done. Failure to do so could lead to a breakdown of the body system and lead to sickness or in extreme cases, death. At such moment it stops obeying commands from the conscious mind. Observe that the brain does this because it cannot trust the conscious mind to do some things right. This is one good reason to prove that man was designed by God and not a product of evolutionary process. An atheist told me that the reason man thinks about God is because there is an organ in the brain that causes that. He was of the opinion that if that organ is removed man will automatically stop thinking about God. But that is also strong evidence that God created man and put that thing in the brain so that man can never feel fulfilled until he remembers his maker. There are more than just one of such vital organs in the brain; just think of what life will be like without your eyes, ears or nose. Man is fearfully and wonderfully made and God’s wisdom manifests in every area of nature. Indeed, there is God.
This is one of the factors that could lead to Writer Block. I always advice people to learn to understand their body function and obey body signals. My children are often bewildered when I tell them that my brain is not working. This may be in the face of very simple arithmetic on their home work and they have learned to let me be in such moments. Whatever you want to do and the brain or the body frame indicates it wants to rest, try to permit it, even if it is ten minutes. I do that in my bible study, prayer time or teaching session. If you rest you will come back refreshed to do more and better. You will also make room for more inspiration and thoughtful writing. If you insist on continuing you will write non-sense and even confuse what you had written in a saner state of mind.
When not to obey your brain
There are times you know that your mind is getting polluted and unnecessarily distracted and you waste quality time doing nothing or the wrong things. In such instance you cannot just organize yourself; this is a malfunction and you must rise up with your conscious mind otherwise known as self-will and take charge of your brain and body frame and bring them under control and do what you know is right.
Abnormal Writer Block; The Idiot-mind
Somebody defines the subconscious mind as IDIOT who accepts whatever signal it receives repeatedly as the pattern for life. So if you go out drinking every evening, your subconscious mind will begin to remind you about that as your daily itinerary. Let’s say you usually go drinking by 6pm every evening, your subconscious will backup it and remind you every day that it is time to go drinking. That is one of the factors that lead to addiction because the subconscious mind reports it as abnormal if you don’t drink by 6pm any other day. This goes for everything we repeat consistently over a long period of time, be it watching football, eating, taking a walk, sex, watching movies etc.
Now you can understand why changing from one lifestyle to another is a struggle. So now you want to develop your mind as an author as against any other lifestyle you deem wasteful to your mental development, there will be struggle. Your mind will want to lock up and try to force you to return to the status quo. In such cases some think they need to wait for inspiration, and the result is that the inspiration will never come because inspiration is not the problem and even if it comes, your brain will block it as abnormal.
 A basic knowledge of the functioning of your computer will be helpful here; have you ever tried to download a very important App or file you are very sure is not harmless to your computer and your computer sends a warning signal like this, “This file maybe harmful to your computer and cause other programs to malfunction”? That is a very good example of abnormal Writer Block. But you will also notice that the system will give you two options, “Download as exception” or “Block Download”. You see now that it depends on you as to whether to adjust your mind and begin to reprogram your mind to write books or to relapse into your old ways of wasting time on things that will not enhance your mental development as an author.
Time to Push
When you discover that you have abnormal writer block, you know that it is time to push forward. I will be teaching in subsequent sections of this material some steps you must take to overcome your mind when it wants to go out of control. One of them is that you must WRITE.

Excerpt from my new book, "My Journey to Becoming an Author"