decided to change his behaviour and to ‘get back on track’ with his life.
In the end I believe the answer to this decision lay in ‘what is this called love’ which changed the son’s behaviour.
Word count: 468.
What’s Next?
I’m a member of Australian Authors Association. This year the association celebrated fifty years of publication; quite a milestone in the field of publishing a magazine to help Australian authors.
In April edition 2013 headlines read ’50 Years Serving Australia’s Literary Creators’. Their first meeting held in 1963 at Federation House, Sydney.
The Association’s office was at the home of Jill Hellyer until 1971 when the Association moved to 252 George Street, Sydney sharing an office with Australian Copyright Council. This sharing provided Australian authors protection through copyright laws for the future.
By 1993 the Association held their first seminar on Electronic Publishing and Writing which if it wasn’t for this establishment of rules made at this seminar our future as Australian authors would’ve been in jeopardy.
Many of the problems of Australian authors arose from ignorance such as Public Lending Rights, for instance, if there were no writers, there would be no publishers and no publishers would mean any bookstores.
After fifty years the Association now asked ‘what’s next?’
No doubt publishing over this last half a century has changed so much for the author. Unless an established publisher published your book there were few other avenues to publish.
Two choices were available - one if the author wanted to go alone and self-publish or second use a vanity publisher.
Along came the digital revolution - digital books. Who would have thought fifty years ago an author could write a book on a computer at his own home, design a cover, copyright the book, obtain a ISBN and publish the book on internet for customers to purchase from around the world by simply selecting the book, make payment, download the book onto a e-reader and read the book.
Imagine if the idea was raised in 1963 at the initial meeting of the Association. Who ever mentioned it would’ve been laughed out of the meeting and told never to return.
Digital publication is now the norm. Any author from anywhere in the world can write a book, upload it onto the internet sell their book to any person on the globe. What’s next you may ask?
My role as an author is to write as many books possible in my lifetime to ‘get them out there’ into cyberspace to reach customers wherever they may be.
My goal is to write a novel per year. There has never been a better opportunity for an author than there is at present to publish their writing for circulation throughout the world.
Word count: 423
What’s In A Name?
Take my name for instance. Pat Ritter. I’m proud of my name. This wasn’t my name when I grew up. Everyone called me Paddy Ritter and many of my friends since childhood still call me ‘Paddy’ instead of Pat.
Another name bestowed upon me ‘Tex’. How this name came to be - a story in itself. In 1975 I gained my designation as a detective in Queensland Police Service.
Before I arrived at Dalby Criminal Investigation Branch, my personal particulars arrived before I did; my initials T P Ritter. My new boss Detective Sergeant Lionel Bacchi recognised the initial ‘T’ and said, ‘this fellow much be ‘Tex’ and for the remainder of my career spanning twenty years I became ‘Tex’ Ritter.
In real life I became Pat Ritter. When I published my first book, reading the author Pat Ritter looked great! I always use my brand ‘Pat Ritter’. My e-mail address, same as my website, facebook page, and other electronic pages I use.
Pat Ritter is my brand. I’m proud to use this name. I want my brand name ‘Pat Ritter’ to be identified in as many places as possible so if a person reads the name this will trigger them to search for my books.
Each year I attend WriteFest, a writing conference for authors to meet and share their knowledge of writing. At this conference various workshops, one such workshop was ‘brand’. The facilitator expressed how important to create your own ‘brand’
From then on I use my name as a brand. Take the brand ‘Coca-cola’ for instance. This brand since time began and continues to grow because customers identify with the brand. Same as many other brand names which reach their customers to purchase their brand or name.
Imagine if ‘Pat Ritter’ spread throughout the globe as a brand whenever a reader saw the name they’d go to my books and purchase them. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? Daily I work on spreading this brand to all corners of the globe through facebook and other programmes on the internet.
I commence with my website www.patritter.com.au to advertise where readers can locate my books. Daily I post a page from a book written and published by me into a group ‘keeping up with my writing’ on facebook, also enter the same page on my author page on facebook and another on a separate website which contains almost one million members.
What’s in a name is important to spread-the-word as a brand as my name ‘Pat Ritter’ so when anyone reads the name they identify with the brand and name.
Word count: 437
When The Boat Comes In
I’m a gambler, gambled on horseracing, bingo, anything which takes my fancy to increase my chances of winning. Over the past couple of years I’ve focused my gambling to win lotto.
When my boat comes in, I’ll tell you my boat will come in as long as I believe the numbers I’ve chosen will fall in any order in one game. Daily my thoughts fill with numbers chosen in the games for these numbers to materialise.
My reason for believing my boat will come in; they appear in my mind, as I stroke them off one at a time from each game. My faith’s strong to believe this will happen.
I not only depend on this belief, I have a game plan. Weekly lotto played each Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Each game recorded on the internet showing the number of times each number’s been drawn.
The plan derived: select twelve games to play each time lotto’s drawn. Print all numbers previously played in the particular game to be played.
Starting from game number 1 to 12 I select the number most drawn and play this number in each game. I complete the coupon by selecting the numbers from most drawn to least drawn together with the most drawn number.
Okay you may think I’m stupid. Perhaps you’re right. The old saying: to win – you’ve got to play. I know winning lotto’s a game of chance and with chance you need to possess a ton of luck.
Luck, I understand. To give myself a better chance of winning I believe I could’ve fallen upon the right formula. I only need to win once; odds of winning first prize unimaginable. I would be happy to win first prize once.
Each time I’m checking off the numbers from the drawn games, what surprises me most, the number of times the most favoured number falls. All I need to do continue selecting these numbers from most favoured to least favoured eventually from all of the games I play, my boat will come in. I can’t wait!
Word count: 351
Which Way Is Up
Life at times can be tough. Imagine the mind of a thirteen year old lad whose parents couldn’t live with each other decided to go their separate ways. The lad went with his mother and each fortnight visited his father for the weekend.
Under tough times both the lad and his mother couldn’t cope with city life and moved to the country to try and work their lives into a better position. At first everything appeared to be working until the lad started to develop issues with his teenage years.
His school work became affected, his self-esteem broken because he was unable to make friends easily. His home life and relationship with his mother became strained and difficult to work out between the two parties.
Issue number one: what to do? Issue number two: how to get this teenager back on track to enjoy his life. Issue number three: to create a better loving and working relationship between mother and son.
His
mother tried everything from threatening the lad with punishment to taking away his games, television and other important items of importance. Nothing worked.
The lad lacked motivation and desire to succeed. His demeanour – self centred and righteous, only he knew what he wanted and that was to party with so called friends and stay out until hours beyond curfew time taking no responsibility for his actions.
Threatening the lad to live permanently with his father didn’t make any difference. The mother was at the end of her rope and didn’t know what to do. She asked herself, ‘which way is up?’
Should she allow her son to do what he wants and if he got into trouble to get his own way out? Like, give him sufficient rope to hang himself. She honestly didn’t know what to do about this situation.
Her decision to move to the country was to give them both a better chance at life; be closer to family; make new friends; enjoy a new lifestyle. Unfortunately after six months, nothing changed and the thought echoed in the mother’s mind, ‘which way is up?’
Who is responsible for the lad’s behaviour? Either his mother or himself, what can be done to make the situation resolve itself?
His mother has a responsibility to raise her child the best way she knows how with parenting skills she has. On the other hand the teenager is responsible to understand what his mother is going through and to help when he can.
Their situation hit a stalemate or rock bottom in their