Some months ago now I discovered word clouds. I love words and I love art, so combining the two is perfect.

I regularly visit Terri Guillemets’ website, Quote Garden, because, like her, I love quotations and use them often in my writing. While browsing the site this week I came across Terri’s ‘About’ page, and my eye was at once drawn to the word cloud she has created to share a little about herself. Such a fabulous idea – so I decided to have a go.

A friend recommended the website Tagxedo to me; oh, what a discovery! Below, you’ll find some ‘Hannah Fielding in a nutshell’ word artworks, created with Tagxedo. If you have a spare moment I highly recommend visiting the site and having a play. You can make word artworks in all kinds of colours and fonts and shapes, save them or publish them to the internet – and even have them printed onto gifts like mugs and t-shirts.

As well as being a fun activity, I think this is a really useful tool for writers. You can summarise the main elements of a book – for example, character names, setting, plot points, themes, climaxes –make them up in an artwork, and then print out the artwork and stick it up on the wall in your writing space for inspiration.