REFLECTING ON MY Writing
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I was a senior lecturer in Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Wolverhampton in England. It's an institution proud of its status as a university of widening participation. I was proud to work there.
One of the things we emphasised to our students was the importance of process over product. One should reflect on one's writing practice, method and works in progress. From this will come a better product (novel, story, poem, play etc.) and a more contented writer, we said. And so, here's mine. Journey into an epicI thought I was writing a romance. a one-off. You know, girl meets boy, show a few obstacles to their love then show happily ever after. But sometimes the story whispering sweet nothings in your ear, is fibbing. It’s not nothing. It’s sooo much bigger than you anticipated. And Romeo is wearing a bush hat and Juliet is in animal skins. They live in Africa, and the slight obstacles involve a racist government and a clandestine war.
And now you have to beg the family savings and set off for a remote area of Namibia to find out about these intriguing characters. You have to hire a four-wheel drive vehicle pulling a trailer with the water and fuel needed in the desert while you search for these nomads. There were other challenges too: a charging bull elephant, a massive veld fire. But eventually I found a group of Ju|’hoan San people, (they referred to themselves as Bushmen) now thought by scientists to be the descendants of the world’s first people. They were small, slim-limbed, quick-witted and enchanting. I fell in love and wrote my first novel about them, Salt & Honey. But I quickly discovered that their story is epic (it would be, with a lineage dating back to the dawn of modern humans, i.e. about 150 000 years.) Soon I had to write what happened next to my bush Juliet (Koba) and her Romeo (Mannie) and their relatives. It’s in the sequel, Kalahari Passage. And it doesn't end there. The final part of the trilogy, Daughter of the Kalahari, is being written as you read this. If you'd like to be an Advance reader, get in touch. |
My esteemed colleagues in the department of Creative and Professional ...dressing.
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