How it all began..!

Sometime around 1998, while I was working as a export sales executive in a corporation, I attended a trade show in Singapore where I bought my first camera. The region  I was looking after for the company was East Africa and I was traveling there about 2 weeks of every month. That is where I discovered my passion for photography. For a long time before that, I had become disillusioned with corporate life and it was becoming more and more difficult for me to get out of bed and go to the office. One weekend while having lunch with friends and discussing the purpose of our lives, I phoned my boss to set up a meeting the following day where I handed in my resignation. When he asked me what I was going to do, I promptly replied that I was going to become a professional photographer. The one very small fact was that I knew nothing about photography and all the pictures I had taken were on automatic mode. I didn't have a clue on how I was going to go about it or earn money. But I did know that I wanted to become a professional photographer.

Skip to  a few months later, the time is about 3am in a week day morning and lying in bed, wide eyed thinking..."What have I done?' My finances were low I had only done a short course on photography and I had no form of income.

But since I had resigned my life had taken on quite a different path to what I was usually used to.

I had started to explore different meditation techniques (none which were helping at 3am in th emorning). I was studying astrology and was doing courses on REIKI and the likes. I was also reading a lot on esoteric subjects. I was on the path to enlightenment. Well that's what I kept on telling my bank manager when he inquired about my ever increasing overdraft.

One evening while at an astrology class  and focusing on my chart, the teacher said that I need to write as that is the way that I express myself the best. "Sure..." I replied. As if it was the most natural thing for me to do. "And what should I write about?" I inquired. "Use your imagination" was her only reply.

Being quite dramatic I decided that it had to be a book I needed to write and not just a daily journal.

If I wasn't confused before, I was seriously now.

A while later I was at a friends house for dinner. She was a single mom, and as she was busy cooking dinner she had put her daughter down in front of the TV to keep her occupied. When it was time to eat we called her a few times to come to the table. As she was so zoned out watching the TV it was only after the 3rd or 4th request that she heard us and reluctantly joined us at the table. Myself and my friend got into a discussion about the effects of TV on a childs imagination. We both agreed that too much TV  probably stunted the growth of a child's imagination. Sorry to all the national broadcasters and pay per view stations.

There and then the penny dropped. I was going to write and interactive book introducing children to the wonders of their imaginations which could be used as an alternative to TV. It would be written in such a way that a parent could read a short section of the book, go over one of the interactive"fun times" with their child and then leave them to do the "fun time". The "fun times" would include drawing pictures, play acting, making puppets and more.

The Magic that's Ours was born