Introduction to writing

I chanced upon a BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) radio production of the story, “Tales of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew” after a lazy Sunday siesta in the year 1988. Like any 11-year-old kid, I was enchanted by the “Chronicles of Narnia” series that I looked forward to the following episodes with zeal, until all seven stories of the series came to a close many months later! At that time, there were numerous words that I was unable to comprehend, although I had constantly achieved high grades in my spelling tests; I pondered on this ‘inadequacy’ and finally, I concluded that I needed to work at my major weakness in mastering the English language, which was simply writing! And I never look back since: besides accumulating a wealth of vocabulary, I started diary-writing and reading my tales periodically. To supplement my fluency in writing, I began reading the local English newspaper, “The Straits Times” at least twice a week. Months later, I was delighted that my...