
Welcome to the Inspiration Page, a free online resource created and commissioned by TLC to help writers stay healthy, happy and inspired at this challenging time. Here you will find a range of inspiring and easy-to-follow writing prompts, short guided meditations, top tips on narrative craft and tips on boosting your resilience and overall sense of wellbeing. We understand at times like these it can be hard to find focus, so please feel free to dip in and out of the Inspiration Page as you wish.
We hope you enjoy the contributions of TLC readers and friends here, and that this page helps you to keep writing. Please do explore, share, and get creative.
With best wishes,
Team TLC
TLC has always existed to support the writing community and help writers respond to these challenges. Although this guide has been written in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, it can also apply to writing during any challenging or uncertain time, and to writers at every level.
Yoga instructor Rakhee has designed this short yoga sequence just for us, to help you feeling energised, and to re-balance the body when working from home. Please use the password 'Yoga with TLC'.
Writers' mentor Anna South demonstrates how to approach starting to write about your own life story in this creative non-fiction exercise.
Writer, poet, performer and activist Penny Pepper talks about her writing process, and what she likes to use when she sits down at the page, from fountain pens to dictaphones.
A bite-sized video, with original sketches, on how to find and hold onto your story when writing for film or television, by TLC script reader Shirley Day.
Written as part of a series of poems during the pandemic, this playful but tender poem is a love letter to all we still have, in the face of what we have lost.
Historian and novelist Stephen Carver takes us through his top five tips to writing compelling historical fiction, each with short creative exercises.
Stephanie Scotts reads a short extract from her thrilling debut novel, What's Left Of Me Is Yours.
UK Comics Laureate Hannah Berry shares a wry insight into a writer's life.
Join poet and Buddhist Roz Goddard in a mind-stilling morning meditation, followed by morning pages.
Use your personal history to create a unique poem in two hours with this inspiring workshop.
An uplifting original illustration by Karrie Fransman, reminding us to look for the light in the darkness.
Take some time to tune into the mind and body and relax into meditative stillness with writer, educator and meditation instructor Sascha Aurora Akhtar.
Imagine a building. Explore its rooms. Now what if that building was a person? Try this poetry exercise to inspire you to think creatively.
Former TLC client and now acclaimed novelist Sarah Butler takes us through the writing exercise that inspired her first book.
Enjoy this original illustration by the author of Harmless Likes You and Starling Days, Rowan Hisayo-Buchanan.
TLC Associate Editor Anna South reflects on the human need for narrative and story, and how we deal with that when the ending seems unknowable.
Spark your inner energy centres and further connect with the artistic impulse which has led to you becoming a writer with these seven meditations for the seven chakras.
Alex Vellis reads poems by Anthony Anaxagorou, John McCullough, and Joelle Taylor.
Find a new perspective on your writing project with this surprising trick from writing tutor Andrew Wille.
Licensed homeopath Lisa Robbins gives her top tips on staying healthy and in tune with your body's energy.
A poem by Leo Boix in which he remembers his grandfather. Can you write your own, about someone you remember, whom you loved?
Sometimes it is easier to write something small and new. Tom Bromley shares three short exercises to start you on a story.
How to represent real people in imaginative ways? Non-fiction inspiration through a simple writing exercise.
Award-winning YA novelist Emma Pass takes you through some fun exercises to deepen your understanding of your characters.
Use this established wellbeing framework to help you build resilience and improve mental wellbeing.
Top tips from bestselling author Angela Clarke on how to find focus in challenging circumstances.
An original long-form ambient track from novelist and musician Ray Robinson, to create the right environment to help writers find that zen-like focus that draws the words right out.
Keep your brain busy with this books-themed crossword from the author of An Indifference of Birds
Solar physics, light and colour are fascinating and suggestive subjects for writing. Have fun with a creative exercise about colour.
Connect with your physical body to find grounding in your writing, with these short exercises by poet and body artist Khairani Barokka.
A reading of a short story from the collection Dazzling the Gods, by writing tutor, and short story expert, Tom Vowler.