I started writing to stop myself from going mad. I wasn’t happy at the time. I was thirty, single, a teacher, and my hot water heater kept breaking down. Every Wednesday, my day off, I stayed in waiting for the heater repairmen to come. Every Wednesday they did not come. I stayed at home, crying and screaming.  And then I started writing a diary, about the broken heater and everything else that made me unhappy, and then I read it to my friends for a laugh.

Then another writer noticed my diary and thought I should take it more seriously, so I did. Went to a little creative writing class, got a story into an Arts Council anthology, and then got noticed by another journalist, who knew another journalist who edited the Women’s page on the Guardian newspaper, who asked me to try and write a humourous column on local government. So I did, and that was the beginning of my writing career.

Which just goes to show that it’s luck that does it. Luck that my boiler broke down and filled me with fury, which needed an outlet, luck that my lodger’s girlfriend knew a journalist who knew the editor of the women’s page, luck that local government is raving mad and a laugh a minute, so that I didn’t even have to make up any jokes. And then I started writing about my teenage daughter and my elderly mother, both of who rarely shut their mouths and who behaved outrageously and provided fabulous copy. More luck. Now I write about myself and my friends, all about 65-70 plus, as we become older and sicker and life becomes more tragic, as we and the world go down the pan together. You either laugh or you cry. I have chosen to laugh whenever I can. Often in writing.

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/michelehanson

 

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