The Writer's Voice: A workbook for writers in Africa

by Dorian Haarhoff

The essence of communication is self-expression. The Writer's Voice is a unique and methodical approach to harnessing your creative energy and using it to write and communicate effectively and creatively. The Writer's Voice is about the joy of writing, for ourselves and for other people. A writer's journey is a spiritual, intellectual and emotional one. Drawing on concepts and aspects such as whole-brain theory, narrative therapy, Jungian psychology, and mythology, Dorian Haarhoff's workbook on creative writing gives readers the opportunity to move towards self-discovery. Stories, hunmour, illustrations, mind maps, quotations and cartoons inspire and guide the would-be writer along a potentially difficult path.

The book is divided into two main sections, encouraging the reader to first create the text and then to craft it by applying critical skills. The text maps the writing journey from first inspiration to final presentation, following the writing cycle from chaotic imagining, through several drafts, feedback and editing, to final copy.

Genres: Writing

295 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

He is a former teacher trainer and Professor of English at the University of Namibia, and has also taught in a Canadian Creative Writing Faculty and in the Film Studies unit at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He has also served as an external examiner at UCT for the MA programme in Creative Writing.

Since 1998 he has run his own business, Creative Workshops. Dorian Haarhoff has on several occasions been invited as poet and as a guest story-teller to Mauritius and to the Conference of Word Affairs in Boulder, Colorado. He has participated in Poetry Africa and an International Poetry Festival in Colombia South America.

His talks/workshops are meant for individuals, organizations and corporations who wish to explore their creativity, improve their skills and understand their relationships. He uses story-telling, writing, images and symbolic work as a means of discovering hidden potential and assessing new ways of being and seeing. He believes in the ability of people to revitalise their workplace, build their communities, participate in their healing and find their joy.

His approach is based on his book, The Writer's Voice: A Workbook for Writers in Africa (Zebra-Struik, 1998). His work is strongly influenced by mythology, whole brain theory, Jungian and Eco psychology, creation spirituality, the new physics and narrative therapy.

You can do one of his courses via the Internet. Go to http://skillstoshare.com/product/the-...

Reviews

[Stephen Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book about writing and encouraging people to write. I've read or looked at quite a number of these over the last few years, and you can find lots of advice for aspiring writers on the Web as well. I glance at a few of them when they appear in my Twitter feed, but there is a remarkable sameness about them all. I suspect that the writers of advice for writers have read very little other than books of advice to writers, and rehash it in blog articles and the like. I think if any aspiring writers took that advice seriously, all novels would be boring and formulaic, and eventually no one would read fiction anymore.

This one is somewhat different. For a start it is written for people in Southern Africa, and it is urging people who wouldn't normally think of writing to tell their stories. I think that is a laudable aim. The convoluted history of Southern Africa over the last 70 years is a story that needs to be told if we are to make sense of it and of our lives, and it needs to be told from many different viewpoints.

So it lacks the usual advice on how to start your novel in the middle of things, with startling and violent events, and let the explanation of them percolate through afterwards. It also is a bit thin on practical advice on how to prepare your manuscript for publication and send it to a publisher. Perhaps that is wise, because such information easily becomes dated.

So much of the book is motivational, where to find your inspiration. And there are many different ways and places to find inspiration, so most readers of the book will find at least a few that may inspire them. Many of them are designed for use in a group, and so they won't appeal to the solitary reader of the book.

[Ilze · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been following Dorian Haarhoff's story wagon for close to 20 years now and have a great admiration for his skill in leading creative workshops, his poetry and storytelling. Initially he was a lecturer at the University of Namibia, but when he realized he can help students who actually want to learn as opposed to those forced to do so, his path to South Africa (at first in George, later Somerset West and currently Pringle Bay) was one of joy and success. He specializes in Jungian archetypes, but is W I D E L Y read and has introduced me to plenty of poets, e.g. Stanley Cunitz and Billy Collins - though the poetry and stories that Dorian knows off-by-heart is extensive and amazing.
When I was still a member of the SA Writers' Circle and also for our small group of Panhandle Poets, I used some of the exercises from this book for our workshops. There are two in particular that I can remember: The first was using knitting needles to write with: You take a piece of paper, place carbon copy paper underneath it and start writing (just make sure to keep the white pages moving so that you don't double-write over them) - it's a great one for dealing with writer's block! Patrick Coyne (who was the last chairman of the SAWC) couldn't help but write about the memories the knitting needle evoked!
Then there's the use of photos to evoke memories, inserting story for the bits you can't remember. That time I used a World War II photo along with Ted Hughes reading Six Young Men. These were meant to serve as examples and then everyone could work on something themselves. One of the ladies in the front row was in tears as she could remember her own grandfather's stories about the war.
Another exercise that's gleaned from this book and that Dorian regularly uses for his wordshops at the BRC is combining three different magazine pictures into one story: Read about one of my efforts here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ancest...
OR: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pictur...
and last (but not least): https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-d... Where you choose - or more correctly said, it chooses you - a piece of material that Dorian has collected and then you write about the memories it evokes.
Another absolute favourite is drawing a story with your non-dominant hand, then you transfer the pen (or crayon) into the other hand and write it out properly. Most, if not all, of these exercises are accompanied by Baroque music playing gently in the background to stimulate the creative juices.

I apologize for the hectic links, but writing all those out in full here could lead to an extremely long 'review' of a most impressive book on how to keep writing once you've started (or run out of ideas).