Michelle Faure grew up in the Eastern Cape. She started her writing career as a journalist for the Port Elizabeth Herald newspaper. She has written many television scripts including scripts for the Discovery Channel. She is also a keen blogger, and writes for The Edge a local newspaper on the Garden Route. She has just finished a novel and is busy writing teen fiction.

Michelle says, “The only thing I can remember ever really wanting to do is to write. The only category I have ever wanted to fit into is the ‘I am a writer’ one. Writing has never been a job to me, but more a compulsion.”

Michelle has two children, almost grown up, and for now she calls Knysna home. She lives in a 150 year old house and the lagoon water laps onto the bottom of her lawn.

“I spy a Loerie every now and then, and drive into the forest as often as I can. I love beaches most of all I think, but generally anywhere close to water suits me fine. Swimming is a necessity in my life, as is reading, cooking and making patchwork quilts,” she says.

What inspires you to write?

My own life experiences inspire me. In fact, I remember my mother asking me once why I insisted on living the way I did at the time, to which I answered, “so that I can write about it.”

What is difficult about writing?

Getting down to writing is the most difficult thing about writing. I tend to make excuses about why it is simply impossible for me to write, but somehow I always do, eventually.

What do you enjoy about writing?

I love how it makes me feel. It’s like flying for me. That sort of freedom. To go anywhere, be anything. I also love how my writing tends to do its own thing, take turns I don’t expect. My created characters surprise me with the things they get up to. I love that crazy thing about writing, the way it has its own life.

A word of advice for young writers.

Tend to your passion as if it was a plant. Give it time and nurture it so that it can grow up. In other words just write. And write and write and write, any time, anything, anywhere.