"The Creative Process of Writing is a Liberating and Therapeutic Experience"
www.virtualwritingcoach.com
August, 2008
In This Issue:
1. Preview
2. Publisher's Note
3. Book Review: A Thousand Hills
4. Helpful Hints
1. Preview
The Writer's Connection explores the creative process of writing and the interplay between thoughts, feelings, and actions.
We are an interactive community of authors and readers who share ideas to enhance our knowledge, skills, and experiences in
writing fiction in any genre, but our emphasis remains mystery and suspense thrillers.
Published monthly, the Newsletter offers writing tips for authors, coaching suggestions, editing, and marketing information.
Topics are presented from the perspective of Keith Barton and represent only his ideas on producing your first manuscript,
and are provided to the general public. Because we are an interactive community of writers, other viewpoints are welcomed and may be
printed in future monthly newsletters with permission from Keith Barton.
2. Publisher's Note
August, 2008
Dear Writer's Connection Subscriber,
This month's newsletter features: Book Review:
A Thousand Hills
3. Book Review: A Thousand Hills
Stephen Kinzer's book by the same title tells the compelling first-hand account of Paul Kagame's
rise to power in Rwanda in the past two decades. Kinzer is a foreign correspondent who has worked
in over fifty countries on five continents. He has first-hand tapes of Kagame's philosophy, vision,
and determination to make Rwanda an economic success. The future President of Rwanda was not yet
two when his family fled the Rwandan death squads by fleeing into Uganda. Paul grew up destitute
in refugee camps and quit a promising academic career to become the CIA and guerilla anarchist
during the Rwandan civil war from 1990 to 1994 - which led to a 100-day genocide that killed over a
million people. The war is much more than the Hollywood depiction in
Hotel Rwanda. Kinzer's account
talks about how the war touched families who were separated and spent years in exile from the
homeland.
Kagame was trained by the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and was part of the U.N.
Peacekeeping forces during the genocide. Kinzer pulls no punches in blasting Boutros-Ghali and the
U.N. for turning their backs on Rwanda and allowing the Hutu tribe to decimate the Tutsi. In gruesome
detail, Kinzer tells of the mayhem and murder of a people who were maimed by machetes. President Clinton
was reluctant to get involved in what he described as a turf war between neighboring tribes. Madelyn
Albright was remiss in her duties to inform the President and American public who were too busy watching
the O.J. Simpson trial to show any compassion or give humanitarian aid to a tiny African country landlocked
by Uganda and the Congo.
On the streets of Kigali, the insurgents were pillaging, raping, and murdering by dismemberment with their
pangas. These same men were placed incarcerated and tried for their crimes around 2006. The maximum sentence
for murder by Rwandan law was thirty years and one was eligible for parole after fifteen years. Many sentences
were reduced and the murderers freed from prisons after the trials. A remarkable Christian phenomenon is
occurring in Rwanda where clergy are preaching forgiveness and many families have forgiven the Hutu insurgents
for killing their parents, brothers, and sisters.
Currently, U.S. companies are providing the economic and engineering infrastructure to make Rwanda
self-sustainable in energy, public works, agriculture, education, and healthcare. President Kagame has now been
in power for six years and although his monarchist government affords his people fewer rights and freedoms than
those in a democracy, he nevertheless, is cautiously optimistic about affording his people all the economic and
social privileges that come with a democracy.
To quote Kinzer (page 336): "Kagame has set out to do something that has never been done before: pull an African
country from misery to prosperity in the space of a generation." To accomplish this great feat, Kagame must
resist the corruption that preceded him not only in Rwanda, but surrounding African nations. Secondly, he must
allow Rwandans to heal from the 1990-1994 civil war and let human nature and religious tenets play out on human
emotion.
Kagame is very confident in himself and Rwandan self-determination that propelled him from refugee to President
in one generation. He wants to reduce poverty, reduce foreign funding and become self-sufficient. To do this
will take much more than a dream - it will take hard work and the giving of time and talent from the rest of the
world. This, after all, is the true test of human sacrifice.
Helpful Hints:
- Read Kinzer's book. What lessons will you learn from a small African country steeped in tribal tradition?
- Watch the movie, Hotel Rwanda, which covers but only the last year of the strife and the U.N.'s
peacekeeping efforts after the civil war. What you will learn is that Hollywood's portrayal of one man is only
part of Rwanda's story to show you an entire nation wanting the same inalienable rights that founded our
country.
- Language is very important. When the French pulled out and quit supporting the Hutu regime, Kagame made
English the official second language and is aligning himself with the U.K. and the U.S. Can you think of other
examples of changing a language to change culture?
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About Keith Barton, Ph.D.
Dr. Barton received his Ph.D. in 1972 from the University of Texas at Austin and has been a practicing therapist
for over thirty years. He is currently enrolled in MentorCoach and is accepting new clients.
He has been an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina,
consultant to Fortune 500 companies in executive development, founded
and managed Texas Community Living Ventures, Inc., in 1986 for providing
group home services to persons with mental retardation. Keith founded
and has been running a clinical practice in Northwest Houston since 1990.
He writes part-time with the goal of completing one novel a year. His desire to coach others derives from his passionate
interest in helping others become attuned to their creative powers of storytelling.
Dr. Barton has training in coaching, cognitive and family therapy and health psychology. He has published articles, made
presentations and conducted workshops about:
Anxiety and achievement
Stress management
Self-esteem
Communication skills
Marital/relationship enrichment
Wellness issues
The relationship between psychology and spirituality
