by Helen Kenwright

It’s easy to get lost in our own heads, as writers. That’s not a bad thing: sometimes our minds just get full of Stuff and Feelings and Weird Imaginings that are much better off written down. But it’s also helpful to look more closely at the real world around us. Through observation we improve our descriptive skills, which in turn will make it much easier to write down the Stuff, Feelings and Weird Imaginings. 

I have a ‘7 Sources of Inspiration’ list to turn to when I want to brush up my skills and get some new ideas along the way: objects, places, people, sounds, art, seasons and elements. 

Objects

This is the classic writing exercise: choose an object and observe it in all its glory. Look at it from all angles, prod it, sniff it, lick it (if safe!). Look at it in different lighting. Through a magnifying glass. Through dark glasses. As if through the eyes of a child. Just really, really, look. It’s a classic for a reason: the more we look at something the more we forget it’s socially constructed label (‘pebble’) and the more we develop our own language for our observation, whether concrete description (‘gritty’, ‘smooth’, ‘rough’, ‘brown’) or more poetic (‘glittering mica’, ‘ice-smooth’) or delving straight into symbolic meaning (‘guardian of the centuries’, ‘essence of the earth’, ‘building block of creation’). It’s all good. 

It’s amazing how little we do really observe the world around us, especially the familiar parts. Next time you read an amazing description of a milk jug in a novel, don’t think ‘I could never write like that’. Think, ‘Wow, that writer really understood that milk jug’. And then go off, notebook in hand,  and find a milk jug to stare at for a while.

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By Helen Kenwright

We all love a good rant, right? 

That moment when things have built up inside you to fever pitch and all your frustration and tension bursts out of you in a torrent of words, faster than a pro rapper and frequently littered with expletives: you might rant out loud, on paper or perhaps you actually are a rapper and spit it out in bars on a stage. However you do it, it can be a really valuable release.

It can also be entertaining for an audience, readership or incidental bystanders. A lot of stand-up comedy routines are well-crafted rants which pick the audience up and carry them along with passion and humour (especially satire, sarcasm and irony), inviting the audience to agree, to applaud, to get all the benefits of the rant without having to peep a word themselves. 

But there are obstacles which can prevent us reaping the benefits of our ranting. In this post I’ll give some tips on how to get the best out of a rant, whether for your own wellbeing or to entertain others.

After all, the whole world has a lot to rant about right now. 

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by Helen Kenwright

Many writers are already experienced home workers, whether novelists, agency writers or freelancers. Writing doesn’t pay much (if anything) so office premises are but a distant dream for most of us. Or even, a nightmare. A lot of us actively enjoy working in our own space, safely separated from the rest of humanity. 

So we are ideally placed, not only to survive the current crisis without a sense of major change (except for the toilet roll shortages; I’m afraid I have no clue how to solve that one) – but to thrive in glorious isolation. We can hand on our wisdom to all those workers who find themselves with a work laptop perched on the edge of their kitchen table, wondering how Jane from accounts is coping and planning how to cover up the unfortunately yellowed wallpaper (with the ketchup stain on it) before it features as a backdrop for their next conference call on Zoom.

It’s also a good opportunity to check in on ourselves and our own working practices. Perhaps we can take this opportunity to make sure that when lockdown is over, our doors open and we emerge, blinking into the sunlight, we are in good shape to handle the brave new world awaiting us.

So read on for some tips on how to have a healthy working life at home, whether you’re a writer or Jane from accounts, who’s trying to manage a spreadsheet on one screen and homeschool her children on the iPad.

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