"everything eats and is eaten, time is fed"

I want tea and candlelight always

[blue-eyed-author]

Some of my writer’s block cures:

Handwrite. (If you already are, write in a different coloured pen.)

Write outside or at a different location.

Read.

Look up some writing prompts.

Take a break. Do something different. Comeback to it later.

Write something else. (A different WIP, a poem, a quick short story, etc.)

Find inspiring writing music playlists on YouTube. (Themed music, POV playlists, ambient music, etc.)

Do some character or story prompts/questions to get a better idea of who or what you’re writing.

Word sprints. Set a timer and write as much as you can. Not a lot of time to overthink things.

Set your own goals and deadlines.

Write another scene from your WIP. (You don’t have to write in order.) Write a scene you want to write, or the ending. (You can change it or scrap it if it doesn’t fit into your story later.)

Write a scene for your WIP that you will never post/add to your story. A prologue, a different P.O.V., how your characters would react in a situation that’s not in your story, a flashback, etc.

Write down a bunch of ideas. Things that could happen, thing that will never happen, good things, bad things.

Change the weather (in the story of course.)

Feel free to add your own.

[kafkaesque-world]

“Lying for a long time, sleeplessness, becoming conscious of the struggle.”

— Franz Kafka, from The Blue Octavo Notebooks

[kafkaesque-world]

“You raven, I said, you old bird of ill omen, what are you always doing on my path?”

— Franz Kafka, from The Blue Octavo Notebooks

[michelleevelyn]

A professor from our Literature department has a picture of Kafka on the door of his office. A raven always finds its way to get into the building, and often sits on the railing facing Kafka's photo. This quote reminded me of it.

Update: the bird in the photo is in fact a crow, not a raven. But we don't have ravens in Israel. I like to think that after his death, the crows/ravens assembled and delagated agents to continue haunting Kafka wherever his essence continues to live. As this is the literature building, it's very likely that it hosts the main Israeli offices of Kafka's Torment Crowmittee- hence why this dedicated worker keeps showing up (in a grey suit, as black is a bit too hot for the Israeli climate), fulfilling his daily duties diligently- even when the building's human workers put up signs that say "keep door closed, or the crow will enter!", or when he's chased away by batons of rolled newspaper. Poor thing! And above all, his client is a big piece of stale bread- calling him an "old bird of ill omen", like a middle-aged woman yelling at a teen worker in Zara while trying to return a tagless neon pink polyester bralette.

[kafkaesque-world]

“Today I do not even dare to reproach myself. Shouted into this empty day, it would have a disgusting echo.”

— Franz Kafka, from Diaries  

[kafkaesque-world]

“My mind resembles a vacant place which offers no attraction, where I am sitting without happiness or unhappiness, without merit or guilt, only because I have sort of been of placed there.”

— Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

[kafkaesque-world]

“I want in fact more of you. In my mind I am dressing you with light; I am wrapping you up in blankets of complete acceptance and then I give myself to you. I long for you; I who usually long without longing, as though I am unconscious and absorbed in neutrality and apathy, really, utterly long for every bit of you.”

— Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena 

[kafkaesque-world]

“There has never been a time in which I have been convinced from within myself that I am alive. You see, I have only such a fugitive awareness of things around me that I always feel they were once real and are now fleeting away. I have a constant longing, my dear sir, to catch a glimpse of things as they may have been before they show themselves to me. I feel that they were calm and beautiful. It must be so, for I often hear people talking about them as though they were.”

— Franz Kafka, Conversation with a Suppliant 

[kafkaesque-world]

“I am carrying such weights of absolute sadness that I must at any moment be dragged down into the deepest sea and the person trying to seize or even “rescue” me would give up, not from weakness, not even from hopelessness but from sheer annoyance.”

— Franz Kafka, Letters To Milena

[kafkaesque-world]

“To be forgiven, you must first of all prove that you are guilty, which the Castle denies; there can be no salvation for the innocent.”

— Slavoj Zizek

[kafkaesque-world]

“You have the chance, as far as it is at all possible, to make a new beginning. Don’t throw it away. If you insist on digging deep into yourself, its right name, it will come. This is the essence of magic which does not create but summons.”

— Franz Kafka, from Diaries

[kafkaesque-world]

“For I underestimate myself, and that in itself means an overestimation of others.”

— Franz Kafka, from Diaries 

[kafkaesque-world]

“Outside social contact, in the solitude of his room, or with good friends, Kafka showed his other mask - the more personal one which allowed him to express his feelings. Thus he was able to find himself, and he indulged himself in literature, for which he had a remarkable talent. “I want to point out what it is easily forgotten when Kafka’s work is contemplated: his joy of the world and of life. In intimate conversation he spoke surprisingly freely, was even enthusiastic and charming. He joked and laughed freely, and knew how to make his friends laugh. This sense of humour was especially prevalent when Kafka read his own works. For example we, his friends, burst into laughter when he read us the first chapter of “The Process”. And Kafka laughed so much that, at times, he could not continue reading.”

— Max Brod 

[kafkaesque-world]

“And I have become cold again, and insensible; nothing is left but a senile love for unbroken calm.”

— Franz Kafka, from Diaries 

[kafkaesque-world]

“I’ve read the Sunday letter once again, it’s even more terrible than I thought after the first reading. One ought, Milena, to take your face between both hands and look steadily into your eyes so that you would recognize yourself in the eyes of the other and from then on be incapable even of thinking the kind of things you wrote in this letter.”

— Franz Kafka: Letters to Milena, p. 34 

[kafkaesque-world]

“In you, I see the heroines of Shakespeare’s tragedies. You, unhappy lady, were never saved by anybody.”

— Marina Tsvetaeva, Bride of Ice: New Selected Poems

[kafkaesque-world]

“How would it be if one were to choke to death on oneself?”

— Franz Kafka, from Diaries

[michelleevelyn]

The fact that he died being essentially starved to death by his own throat closing up due to tuberculosis makes it all the more terrifying.

[kafkaesque-world]

“April 27. Incapable of living with people, of speaking. Complete immersion in myself, thinking of myself. Apathetic, witless, fearful. I have nothing to say to anyone - never.”

— Franz Kafka, from Diaries