Excuse me? I’ve often been asked this question and it never fails to stop me in my tracks.  How do I write? Well, it has to begin with an idea, an idea of what I want to write, fiction or non-fiction.  Do I want to write a story?  A short story, a novella or do I want to share a topic about which I feel strongly? Then, I put the idea on paper in a couple of words.  Once the idea is down, I just write anything and everything that comes to mind, related to that idea.  This will go on for about ten minutes. After that, I take a look at what I’ve written and try to make a mind map.  That will be the skeleton to which more will be added as I think of the “meat” to add to fill out the skeleton. There is a group which meets in the evening, once a month, in a small roofed shelter by the sea.  We discuss books which we’ve read, share our thoughts and even our writing.  A member of our group suggested that we should pen 100 word stories and share them.  This was an excellent exercise […]

My first non-fiction book was a book for young children. It is about the tiger. The tiger has always fascinated me. Not only is its physical appearance and beauty awe-inspiring but its deep throaty growl evokes chills and fear. Its golden tawny skin with dark stripes and its beautiful eyes can mesmerize one. My friend and I had a close encounter with a tiger, no, not at the zoo or safari park. We had gone looking for a picnic spot in a small village. I had been there once with my classmates and the waterfall and clear shallow pool was still fairly unknown to visitors, except for the few local villagers. However, I had not been there for a year and I thought I could find my way there. We walked further and further away from the village and soon the undergrowth became thicker. There weren’t any other people and we couldn’t hear any sound of the waterfall. Suddenly we froze in our track. A deep throated roar broke the silence. My friend and I looked at each other. Oh my God! Surely not a tiger??? There it was again! Indeed it was a tiger!! I remembered reading somewhere that […]

The one who influenced me most in my writing journey was my late mother.  She was a teacher and I remember she instilled the reading habit in us from very young. She made sure my siblings and I borrowed story books from the public library every weekend and read them. Then we had to write a summary of the stories we read, the new vocabulary we learned and to copy down the interesting sentences that we liked. She said that was one way of learning the writer’s style. We would eventually find our own style of writing but we had to familiarize ourselves with the way authors wrote, how they used words to describe scenes, feelings, etc. This was when we were in early elementary school and I believe this was when I developed a love for reading, garnering new vocabulary and above all, I learned to like perusing the dictionary whenever I came across a new word that I didn’t know the meaning of. Whenever we went out on trips to the countryside or to a new place, be it a small town or village, we had to write down what we saw and what we liked. She encouraged […]