syntaxError: ‘continue’ not properly in loop

continue is only allowed within a for or while loop. You can easily restructure your function to loop until a valid request.

def writeHandlesToFile():
    while True:
        with open("dataFile.txt","w") as f:
            try:
                lst = tweepy.Cursor(tweepy.api.followers,screen_name='someHandle',).items(100000)
                print "cursor executed"
                for item in lst:
                    f.write(item.screen_name+"\n")
                break
            except tweepy.error.TweepError as e:
                print "In the except method"
                print e
                time.sleep(3600)