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Pat Ritter. Books


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Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Tue Dec 27, 2011 12:41 am

At long last I never thought attending college would be so gratifying. I wanted to learn more about the subject 'Behaviour'. The first night we handed our assignments to Bob. Before we did I asked a fellow student if I could read what they'd written.

I was surprised to see the assignment was set out in headings. Each heading gave a definition of the heading and went on to describe what they learned at the workshop. I didn't write my assignment in that format and thought insistantly to withhold mine. In the end I handed it to Bob. I'd written it similar to telling a story and as a conclusion included the story of helping the mother and daughter with their issue of the child taking money from home.

A week later Bob handed back the assignments after scoring them. I didn't receive mine. Hello, I thought, just as I'd imagined - it wasn't good enough. During a break in the class Bob came to talk to me. Í couldn't put your assignment down. I read it over and over.'

'Was it that bad.' I replied.

'No - what I wanted to ask you is, can we keep it as an example of what to expect from this subject. It's a dry subject and together with your metophors we want to use it as a example to other students.'

Óf course - what score did I get.'

Ánother thing - you have a gift, you write the way you speak, which is unique.'
When I heard these words expressed from Bob's mouth, an insist reminder travelled back to when Mr Imoff told me exactly the same words. Mr Imoff and Bob never knew one another.

Tomorrow I'll tell you how Bob and I started working together to write a book - what a story.

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Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Tue Dec 27, 2011 11:16 pm

After hearing these words from Bob about my writing and knowing this is the second person who had told me a similar statement, I continued to not understand how I had this 'gift', you write the way you speak and this is unique, they each told me.

Time went on and work with parents and their teenage children grew at a rapid rate, in that, I had to have an appointment book. Parents came from far away as Kilcoy and Burpengary to see me. Word spread like wildfire.

I felt great discovering how to help parents and their teenager with issues of communication, motivation, self-esteem and goal setting. I loved the work and 90% of my time was spent on mediating instead of my usual role of investigating juvenile crime. The other three detectives were doing just fine.

After a class at college one evening Bob asked if I could stay behind, he wanted to speak with me. To my surprise he wanted to write a book about what I was doing.

To say I was gobsmacked would be an understatement. After a lot of persuasion by Bob, I agreed. Our agreement was after I finished speaking with a parent and their teenager, I wrote a story about what I'd done coupled with the outcome. Names were never included. This was the practical side and Bob wrote the theory so both practical and theory dovetailed together to make a book. It'll only take six weeks, he told me.

Wait until tomorrow and I'll share with you our story of how we co-authored our first book.

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Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Wed Dec 28, 2011 11:10 pm

Before Bob and I could set into place a book on the work I was doing, first I needed to apply to the Commissioner of Police for permission to write the book. After a lengthy delay I was finally given approval on the condition that before the book was published it needed to be approved by the Inspector-in-charge of Juvenile Aid Bureau and the legal section of the department.

Talk about synergy between Bob and I. Each night I attended college I'd hand him a story I'd written and he in-turn handed me a theory, he'd written. You wouldn't believe how our minds worked as one. The first night I handed him a story of a young girl who lacked motivation and 'ran away from home'. Her self-esteem was lower than the floor in the office. In turn Bob handed me the theory on 'motivation'. Neither of us knew what we were going to write about but each night each shared a similar story. It was incredible.

Instead of taking six weeks to write the book; it went into the first year before we had the first draft completed. In those days we didn't have computers and typed the story on foolcap size paper. The first draft was one inch thick and the length of foolcap paper. I had forty copies printed. Twenty for Bob and the same for me.

To measure what our peers thought of the idea we each handed out copies to them for their comments. Out of the twenty copies I handed to my peers there was one person who returned it with comments. When I approached the others their comments were, 'Tex, this is your thing, I'm not interested.'

At the time I built a tortoise shell around my ego for had I not at that stage my writing career would have stopped there and then. My belief and passion to be able to help parents improve communication with their teenage child drove me onwards to succeed. I was never going to give up my dream.

Bob gave a name to the book at that time 'The Missing Link'. The name didn't resonate with me and it would be another twelve months when I joined my two hands together with the name shot into my head - 'Closing The Gap'.

Wait until tomorrow and I'll share with you how we published 'Closing The Gap'
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Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Thu Dec 29, 2011 11:05 pm

One year went into the next and eventually we completed the second draft of the book. I again had forty copies printed, twenty for Bob and twenty for myself to hand out to people to receive their feedback. We decided not to hand the book to our peers like we did previously, only to the one person who went to the trouble of actually reading the manuscript and writing comments would receive one.

One night by accident I handed a second draft to a parent of a teenage child I finished mediating with. She had defied her parents after being grounded and snuck out of her bedroom. Unfortunately she wrote her night's entainment in her diary which her mother subsequently found.

To solve the solution to the young girl's issue of wanting to go to the city on a Saturday night, I suggested to the parents they might take her and have an icecream at McDonald's. Anyway, after I completed the session I handed a second draft of the manuscript to the child's mother and asked if she would like to read it and give me feedback.

Early the next morning she was waiting for me when I arrived at work. She wanted to keep the second draft and told me this was a book needed for parents. My heart swelled with glee to hear these words. At last we found the direction we were travelling. The book was needed for parents and not our peers.

Wait until tomorrow to read about how 'Closing The Gap' was published.

This is my last entry for 2011. I'll be back on 3/1/2012. I sincerely wish all of the readers a Happy New Year and I look forward to continuing my story next year.
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Re: Pat Ritter. Books

Postby Nevis » Sun Jan 01, 2012 9:55 pm

Pat. You have a way with words. You remind me of Dickens. My favourite author. No holds barred and no avenue unexplored. :thanks

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Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Mon Jan 02, 2012 11:54 pm

Thank you Nevis for your very kind words and to be compared to one of the greatest writers in history is commendable. I appreciate your kind comments and as they say in the classics 'you haven't read nothing yet'. :thanks

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Pat Ritter. Books

Postby patritter » Tue Jan 03, 2012 12:11 am

Now we were on the right track about the book to focus on parents instead of our peers, more stories needed to be written. One particular story comes to mind. Parents bought their fifteen year old daughter to see me. She'd run away from home.

When we got to the seat of the problem it turned out the parents were fighting about finances, the teenager became so frustrated she ran away from home, 'they always fight about money,' she said. After extracting from the parents their income and expenditure I completed a budget to show they had sufficient cash flow without worry. Their daughter said, 'you could have asked me to do that, we do it at school.' They left the office happy and contented.

It was almost Christmas when this family saw me. I worked over Christmas and New Year and was called to a fatal road accident. The deceased was this young teenager who'd ran away from home. I had tears in my eyes when I told her parents she'd never be home again. Unfortunately this was part of being a police officer. At times it was emotionally tough and other times most satisfying.

After another year we finally finished the third draft of 'Closing The Gap'. Now to find a publisher. Neither Bob nor I knew anything about publishing or how to go about it. We'd hit another road block.

Tomorrow I'll share with you how 'Closing The Gap' was published.

Pat Ritter Books then click.... PRB

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