Samantha Garner, Freelance Web Writer & Editor

The thing about writer’s block is, sometimes, you don’t really care too much about overcoming it. If it’s an especially tricky bout, you may feel like there’s absolutely nothing you can do to get over your writer’s block, so why bother? That happens to me sometimes, but I’ve found some ways to get motivated to write, even when my brain is telling me to pack it in and spend all day on Google Earth zooming around Russia.

Write about anything

You’ve probably heard this one already, but there’s a reason for that. Seriously, just write about anything – it doesn’t have to be good. Write about something that happened to you the day before, a place you’d like to travel to, a funny thought you had, anything. Don’t worry about being able to use it later. I have a half-page written about a dream I had featuring an old house full of talking animals who were all at war with each other. Can I use that for an article or story? Maybe, maybe not. But at least I was writing (even if it was weird)!

Ask others for ideas

Now I’m not suggesting you poach other people’s article or story ideas, but your friends and family can be a useful source of writing motivation. How many of them have ever said to you, “So you’re a writer? Man, you should write about .” You might consider it a cosmic joke that the non-writers in your life have all the ideas when you have nothing, but use it to your advantage. Write that story that your cousin thought would be cool, even if you thought she was out to lunch. For me, the best way to not give up on writing is to not take it too seriously.

Walk away from old, finished projects

Yes, reviewing and editing finished work seems like the perfect writing motivator. However, I’ve found that it can end up making everything worse. I have two short stories that I was refining for about five years, all because I was intimidated by the prospect of starting a completely new project. By all means, if you come up with a great idea for an old project, go for it. But seriously – working on the same two stories for five years was very much not fun!

Ugh. Hi. It’s not Sunday anymore, is it?

If it makes up for being late, I’ve been very busy this weekend! I have some new projects starting which are very exciting, so I’ve been busy with those. Yes, even on the Labour Day holiday.

This Spelling & Grammar Sunday will be a nice quick one. No long explanations, no examples. Just something to check out if you get these words mixed up.

“Your” vs “You’re”

Basically, it’s “your” if you are talking about something the person owns or possesses, and “you’re” if you are saying (like I just did!) “you are.” “You’re” is a contraction, and the apostrophe is meant to replace the ‘a’ in “you are.”

“You’re” is the easier one to remember out of the two, so you can do a neat process of elimination thing if you’re stumped. Trying to say “you are?” Great! If not, use the other one.

Ah, words!