Our
next featured author, Pat Ritter, comes from the beautiful country of
Australia. To be specific, he lives in the Mary Valley on Queensland, the
setting for his adventure novel, The Drover.
The Drover Synopsis
Harry
Williams from the age of ten years wanted to become a drover, like his father
and grandfather before him. This is his life story of leaving school at ten
years old, operating his first droving plant at thirteen years and fully
operational at twenty-one years old. Droving is now a craft past its used by
date. Harry Williams didn't think so.
Motivation for Writing
His
inspiration for The Drover came from his late father-in-law, who was a drover. Pat
would sit around the campfire with his father-in-law while he ‘spun the best
yarns’ of his droving days. Thirty years later, Pat decided to put his history
into print.
Pat
Ritter has many motivations to keep him writing, and life events to reflect
upon. He has been writing since 1986, and at present, has ten
novels published. 'Closing The Gap' being his first novel selling 8000 copies.
It was traditionally published by The Australian Lions Awareness Foundation to
help parents improve communication with their teenage children.
Ten years ago, after writing and
self-publishing his third novel, he made a decision to retire and write full time. Pat is passionate and wanted to be a writer no matter what the
journey. At the time his wife made a statement, “How are we going to eat?” She
wasn't kidding. They purchased their property at Brooloo - set in plans to
build a house and retire in a bush setting. The dream of his writing world
began to take shape, but then it was suddenly shattered.
Within twelve months he lost the
love of his life to cancer. His angel was gone. To keep her alive, Pat wrote a
tribute about his wife’s life and posted it on his website www.patritter.com.au - In Remembrance of Bub. Her story is free to download.
One morning, he thought, “What would Bub want me to do?” He could hear her say, “You wanted to retire and write - so write”. She always
wanted Pat to write stories he told her about his life as a police officer,
detective and his demon - alcoholism.
Finally he wrote and published, Confessions of an Alcoholic, where he
introduces readers to a character Bundy Quicksilver, which in reality is Pat.
The book is about Pat’s life as an alcoholic and how he overcame his demons to
understand what caused him to become an alcoholic in the first place.
Pat Ritter’s reason to
Self-Publish
In 2009, at the time he was
self-publishing and selling the books via his website, Smashwords and Amazon
decided to accept e-books from Indie Authors—Pat jumped on the bandwagon. He
loves it. Not only does he have total control of what he does, he can promote his
writing via social media and blogs.
Stop on by Pat’s website to check
out his books.
Buy on Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/95766
Buy on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Drover-ebook/dp/B005YTGUOM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1343363977&sr=1-1
Thank you, Pat
for introducing us to your works and taking part in the Pay It Forward. I wish
you the best with your writing endeavors.
Spread the word about Pat Ritter - http://bit.ly/T377mM
History and
Adventure,
Bea
