To write well, you must live: part 2

August 20, 2026 by kkamilah Leave a comment

All consuming and no living makes Jack a dull and stupid idiot

There are times I’ll have a conversation with someone and they’ll actually say something like burnt toast theory. It’s giving. Ate and left no crumbs.

I get that language evolves, but genuinely what the hell are you talking about.

Other times, I’ll have a conversation with someone who is so detached from anything online that I am embarrassed for myself when they don’t understand a reference I’ve made (road work ahead? Uh, yeah, I sure hope it does).

In that moment, I realise some people really are just living their life away from social media influence (as intended), and others have TikTok (or Vine) fully wired into their brain. There’s a sweet spot – where you get the reference and you know what the trends are but you don’t fall victim to influencer crap.

When you’re incessantly consuming repetitive content, including “tips and tricks” from people around the world (who seem to live the exact same life, for some reason. The beauty in our differences is lost.), you also don’t really have anything interesting to talk about except the regurgitated shit you’ve read and heard.

Consequently, you can only repackage it through your own point of view that has also done nothing but go to the gym in Oner and a slick-back, eat a healthy high-protein balanced meal, take 15k steps, and use red light therapy. Or wake up and make a cup of tea, take a nature walk, write in your journal, post an article about ‘the media I consumed this week’, and be in bed with your kindle at 8pm. Everyone seems to want to be boxed up into one of few categories, and doing one is no better than the other.

Content – on TikTok, Instagram, and now even Substack – becomes a snoozefest. We’re inundated with nothing but articles and videos about how to schedule your day to be exactly like each others. Read more

To write well, you must live: part 1

August 18, 2026 by kkamilah Leave a comment

Writing for fun, writing as a millennial, the case for FAFO

As a millennial and a Tumblr gal back in the 00s and 10s, I started to feel like I was existing on Substack in a sea of people who are getting younger and younger than me and, if I am very candid, having less and less in common with me. It’s comforting to know that there are so many of us who refused to disappear when blogging dissolved or turned into the shitshow that is Twitter.

I write the same way I did when I was in my twenties, which probably contributes to why I feel like an old ugly duckling on here. The cynicism has never left me, my general anger at the state of the world has only compounded, and I probably will say things that will offend some people. But I’ve never cared about that. I’m not interested in reading about beauty trends, living a soft life, being a thought daughter, or how to become intelligent and well-read. I do what I want (while wearing winged eyeliner), and I already am intelligent and well-read. I don’t understand why many other people can’t get there on their own too.

I don’t care for censorship and trigger warnings, either (probably why the kids think we’re so inappropriate). I don’t believe in walking on eggshells because you want to appeal to everyone and then making sure you only make content that everyone will like. We’ve all walked different paths and have seen the world through different eyes – blogging is for everyone and, for me, the point is to be real. Why would I want to read a carefully curated piece of work that serves to be the same as… everything else? Some people have been able to live a nice, easy life; others have seen the horrors and want to share with the class

I want to read about what people are thinking, I want to read about personal experiences and all the little things that make their lives (and writing) different from everyone else’s. I want it to be accidentally adorned with their own personal flair and I don’t want it to be so censored. Thoughts can be ugly when they’re not censored, and it seems we’re scared of that.

Thoughts before watching “Wuthering Heights” (they’re bad)

February 21, 2026 by kkamilah Leave a comment

After watching Hamnet twice in a week last month, my fizzing excitement and awe have finally died down to a gentle, ever-burning ember – just retreated into the background enough for me to become hot and riled up again as the release of Emerald Fennell’s pitiful take on “Wuthering Heights” looms nearer.

I believe there are a few instances in which it’s okay to slag off a film before watching it. Everything my eyes have been subject to about this train wreck – from the promo, the trailers, the billboards, to interviews with the creator herself – has told me that this film is going to be nothing but an utter pile of rot. And the only reason it’s going to be an utter pile of rot is because of the way it has obliterated one of the greatest novels ever written.

I’m not talking ‘the book was better’ or ‘it wasn’t a faithful adaptation’ – I’m talking she chewed up the book in her brainless 14 year old self’s mouth and regurgitated it twenty-five years later. If she even read it.

I have no expectations for a faithful adaptation

Like so many other people who are seething with rage, I first read Wuthering Heights in school and it immediately became one of my favourite novels. Through studying it, I didn’t fantasise about a Cathy who looked like me and a Heathcliff who also looked like me – I, along with my classmates, picked apart the text and the context, explored themes and wrote essays that always included something about Heathcliff’s ambiguity and ‘otherness’, Cathy’s ‘wildness’. Then I read it again for fun almost every winter as a young adult and, now, a fully-fledged adult.

I was obsessed with the unhealthy obsession, the moody moors, how fucked up the characters are – not because I thought it was a beautiful dark romance but because of the exploration of human psychology and the complexities of the characters. At the time, I was also writing stories involving gory murder and blood, torture and kidnapping etc etc. My teachers weren’t impressed, I think.