Pat Ritter. Books

[patritter]

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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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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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.

[Nevis]

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

[patritter]

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'.

[patritter]

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.

[patritter]

Bob nor I knew how to have a manuscript published, particularly one like our manuscript because although it was the most important thing to us it had to meet the feelings of the readers, in this case - parents.

Near Dakabin State High School many football clubs were being broken and entered, and money, food and other things stolen from the canteen. I came up with an idea to speak with the Principal (who was one of the peers I'd handed a first draft of the manuscript to and received no response).

I met him on the parade ground and asked him if there were many students playing truant on a Wednesday afternoon instead of attending sport. There were many - too many to report. I said, 'can you give me the twenty worst kids you have here to meet me in the library for the afternoon'. He pointed to a group of young lads standing nearby and shouted, 'you lot, the Detective Sergeant wants to see you in the library Now!'. I didn't want him to do it that way but at least I had an audience.

This was the beginning of a Wednesday afternoon gathering of students who didn't attend sport and instead attended my sessions of two hours in the library. We spoke about many things which life hands out to us. I asked each one what they intended doing after they left school and most had no idea.

Over the coming weeks those twenty students swelled to over sixty. We shared many important issues facing them as teenagers, students, young people, and whatever they wanted to talk about. I was having the fun of my life and subsequently the break and enter offences decreased to zero.

One afternoon after I completed the session, the Welfare Officer from the school aproached me to seek my advice. At all times I always carried in my briefcase sufficient numbers of the third draft of the manuscript to hand out to people who was interested in the subject. This person told me she was a member of Lions and wanted to present the manuscript at the up and coming conference that weekend.

Wait until tomorrow to see what happened to our manuscript.

[patritter]

Time went by, we couldn't come up with any ideas on how to publish our manuscript. I was promoted to the rank of Sergeant First Class and transferred to the Computer Branch. Computers were in their infancy in the police at the time. I wanted to learn from the ground floor how they worked.

After about six months working at the Computer Branch I received a telephone call from The Secretary of the Lions Drug Awareness Foundation requesting Bob and I meet with them at their Spring Hill office to discuss the publication of the book.

We were over the moon. After a lengthy meeting the foundation was eager to publish 'Closing The Gap' and circulate the book throughout their network of Lions, Leos and Lioness Clubs across Australia and Papua New Guinea.

It was a dream come true for each of us. After many months of working with the editor and graphic designer; I wanted the cover to be the same as when I thought of it with parent and teenager looking at one another, we were on the way to have the book published.

At the same time I was selected to establish 'Crimestoppers' for the police. This period of my life was to say at least 'hectic'. One half of me was concentrating on my police work to establish 'Crimestoppers' whilst the other was excited about the publication of 'Closing The Gap'.

Wait until tomorrow to read about the official launch of the book.

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The Official Launch for 'Closing The Gap' finally arrived being held at Parliament House Brisbane at 12.30pm on 29th August 1989. The Honourable Brian Littleproud M.L.A., Minister for Education, Youth and Sport officiated.

What a fanfare. Invited guests ranged from the Commissioner of Police down to members of the Lions Clubs. I remember the hall packed with people, many who I'd never met. I made a speech explaining the history of identifying an issue with 'children running away from home'; meeting Bob, studying behaviour, and finally finding the holy grail to help parents improve communication with their teenage child.

I felt as if I'd climbed Mount Everest - I was so full of happiness I could almost burst.

Now you've read about how 'Closing The Gap' was written and published, how about going to this link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52861 and purchasing a copy. Let your friends and relatives know about the book for it could help you or them improve your communication with your teenage child.

Wait until tomorrow to find out what happened after the launch.

Parenting teenagers at times can be difficult and is an unknown journey for parents of teenage children. This book came about when one of the co-authors identified how he could improve communication between parents and their teenager after the teenager had 'ran away from home'. This book is unique....

[patritter]

Thanks Dub for your thanks