I have been writing my whole life. I started with my sister, writing down our Barbie sagas played out on the floor of our shared room. From there I moved up to a desk and, depending on what I was reading at the time, wrote in various styles.
The Brontes were such an inspiration that I wrote an entire three hundred page novel in minute script, with a fountain pen, in a series of tiny note books.
Writing has always been my passion, that by which I define myself. I became a great traveller and, along with a rugsack I carried a pile of journals with me always.
Whether being splashed by foamy waves on yacht decks, flying between continents, or hitch hiking down a tarred road, my journals have kept pace with me.
I have written many different styles, as needs have presented themselves.
? some journalism for the E P Herald
? an in house newspaper for AECI
? scripts for television and
? scripts for corporate clients (including Pick and Pay and Spur)
? copy for web sites
? a blog for the last two years (the Blah Blah Blog)
? a column in a local newspaper
That great unfinished novel keeps calling, and in between raising children, and endless moves from place to place, pages of words get scribbled down.
At the moment I write on a gold netbook with a butterfly cover. I sit on our wide white veranda, if the weather is fine, and there is only bird song anywhere near me.
I keep indoors mostly though, and its a battle to ‘show up at the page’. I distract myself with a floor that needs to be swept, or a cup of tea that must first be made.
The space around me must be silent, and preferably these days, absolutely only filled by me. Its a solitary thing. Lonely even.
Having a novel published is just about the only dream I have from childhood. The other precious details of my life, like having children, were things I, recklessly, assumed would happen, and they have.
Some years I hardly write, but like a true friend, when we meet again, the blank page and me, its like no time has passed at all.
So, if Destiny is a thing at all, then being a Wordsmith must be mine.
Words are food for me, of the most nourishing and sustainable kind. Delicious some are too of cause, and caustic, bitter, salty some, like tears.
Anyway, give me something to write, and I will.
Where it comes from , this writing down words, no one knows.
Its the strangest thing, but I feel all those sentences and paragraphs and characters, gathered around me like low lying clouds, just waiting to rain down words.
michelle@askthelocals.co.za
A part-time freelance writer with published articles in Marie-Claire, Fair Lady and Psychologies magazines. A book is currently ‘work in progress’; a humorous look at personal calamity; embracing change and giving adversity a proverbial kick up the backside. 
