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Saturday, February 21, 2009

Interview with Author Terri Kraus


Today I am pleased to present an interview with author Terri Kraus.

Terri, welcome to Patti's porch. I understand your new release, The Renewal, is the second in a series. Tell us about both of your books.

The series is called The Product Restoration Series, published by David C. Cook. It is set in the world of building restoration. I love the metaphor of restoration, which is why I came up with the idea for the series-stories that would follow both the physical restoration of a building and emotional/spiritual restoration of a character. And because I'm an interior designer and have done many such projects, both personally and with my clients, it's something I've always wanted to write about.

Book 1 - The Renovation
It is the story of Ethan Willis, who has made a career out of restoring old houses like the Carter Mansion, so he's an expert with door and windows. Tragically widowed and left with a young son, he's done the best he could, but now that Chase has become a teenager, that best somehow isn't quite good enough. For his part, Chase doesn't know what he'd do without baseball, his best friend Elliott and the secret hideaway even his dad doesn't know about. What he does know is that the reporter lady who suddenly started chatting with his dad can't be a good thing. In a small town where everyone knows everything, does an outsider, a young, cute, ambitious reporter-kind-of-outsider like Cameron Dane even have a prayer of getting to know the handsome but moody builder? Does it matter that they both hold secrets from their pasts? And can Chase ever be freed from the hidden guilt of his mother's death? Only time, and a special kind of patience, will tell.

Book 2 - The Renewal
Single-mom Leslie Ruskin and her 5-year old daughter, Ava, are starting over in a new town-Butler, Pennsylvania-where her ancestors once lived, after a devastating divorce turned their world upside-down. As Leslie tries to provide a stable life for little Ava, she struggles to manage her own anxiety. She buys a landmark building in the historic area of town, which she is strangely drawn to. As the new owner of the Midlands Building, with its architecturally stunning first floor, Leslie is in need of a master carpenter to renovate its neglected interior. Jack Kenyon seems to be the perfect man for the job. He's starting over, too, after leaving Franklin, Pennsylvania, where he worked for Ethan Willis on the restoration crew of the Carter Mansion. But Jack is struggling to master his own demons. Haunted by loneliness, his past failures, and the lost relationshp with his own young daughter, Jack finds it difficult to maintain his sobriety. As the Midlands Building is transformed from the rundown former home of a locksmith shop, with its own secrets, into a vibrant cafe bistro, the relationship between Leslie and Jack becomes the catalyst in their journey towards the renewal that their lives so desperately need...and unlocks the love they are destined to discover.

Panic attacks and alcoholism are two subjects that are addressed in The Renewal. Have you had personal experience with these life-challenging conditions?

I have not personally had experience with these conditions, but am close to peole who do. As director of women's ministries for 6 years at our church, I've seen women go through all sorts fo challenges. These two can be very devastating.

You have co-authored several books with your husband. Were they fiction or non-fiction? What was the subject matter?


Jim and I wrote historical fiction - a series called Treasures of the Caribbean (3 books, Tyndale) and a series called Circle of Destiny (4 books, Tyndale) - pluas a 3-book contemporary fiction series called Stories From MacKenzie Street (Barbour).

Do you find it easier to write with a co-author or by yourself?

I enjoy it either way. We work well together, and have very complimentary skills. Jim has written some books solo as well, but we both help each other out on every project.

It sounds like you are a full-time interior designer. Is writing a sideline for you?

I worked full-time in Interior Design before my 11-year-old son was born, and taught it at the college level. Since becoming a mother, I've only done part time consultation work, and so have time to write.

How long have you been writing?

Since I was a little girl, but I've been a published author since 1995.

Any advice for beginning writers?

Write, write, write! Read, read, read! Find a great critique resource - someone who is published and has advanced skills - and who will be brutally honest.

Thank you, Terri. It has been a delight to have you here today. May God bless you on your writing journey.

Thanks very much for having me!

Thanks for reading my blog!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Forever Close in Spirit - Part III

Valentine's Day 2009

If you've read parts one and two of this post, you know that my dad passed away 13 years ago today. How ironic that he would leave this world on this particular day. Dad never cared for flowers, but he had an affinity for the color red. I think the fact that God welcomed him home on the holiday where red abounds holds a great deal of significance.

Dad had a passion for life. He seized the good times with almost a child-like exuberance.

He loved the mountains and the ocean. He always harbored an appreciation for nature.

He preferred the cold to the heat. He loved to watch a good storm, whether it be a blizzard, a snowstorm, or a hurricane.

He enjoyed music, but only certain kinds of music. His favorite were the tunes from the big bands era, which he reproduced on the piano to the delight of dozens of friends and family members.

He preferred to travel the back roads on a trip and would do almost anything to avoid the main highways and traffic. He loved to fly and he loved to drive. The "going" part of a trip was far more important to him than the getting there.

Dad was opinionated about politics and money and things over which he really had no control.

He detested talking on the phone.

We always got a hug and a kiss from dad before going to sleep at night.

He taught me to always pay my bills before buying something I want and don't really need.

He taught me to practice a sound work ethic of giving your best and don't call in sick unless you really are.

He taught me to face adversity with all the strength you have and never give up.

Some of my favorite memories of dad:

cooking chicken on the outside grill until it was perfect.

walking down to the corner to meet dad after work.

eating the ice cream cones he made for us when he worked behind the counter at Uncle Howard's store.

the way he said "beeee-autti-ffuull!" when he looked at something he admired (mainly scenery and new cars!)

washing the car

cradling our daughter and son in his arm when they were babies

working a crossword puzzle

dad in his post office letter carrier's uniform

dad proclaiming vehemently that gas prices would never, ever, rise above a dollar a gallon

packing the car before we left on a trip

So many random thoughts come together on this day that symbolizes love. I don't view this day with sadness anymore. Love does not end with a person's death. Love is eternal. It transcends time and space and the borders that define our lives here on earth.

Long after the body is laid to rest, we who are left maintain a connection with our loved ones. God gave us memory, and through our memories, our loved ones stay alive in our hearts. The more time that separates us from a loss, the weaker the hold our grief has on us and the stronger the embrace of precious memories.

Dad, I love you and I miss you. Thanks for all the ways you impacted my life.

Happy Valentine's Day!


Thanks for reading my blog!

Forever Close in Spirit - Part II

FEBRUARY 1996

We make our way back upstairs to mom and dad's apartment. Mom is talking to someone on the phone. I get dad settled in his recliner, complete with pillow and blanket despite the heat on the tenth floor, and he is instantly asleep.

Mom hangs up the phone and I tell her about dad's visit with Nancy. She has her account book open and I doubt she really hears anything I say. I stop talking and watch her. She looks lost, scared. She has been in such a state of confusion and fear and uncertainty since I arrived that I feel useless to her. My efforts to comfort her have seemed futile. Sometimes, I feel I'm more of a hindrance than a help, and I wonder if I did the right thing by leaving my family to come back here.

My sister and niece arrive. Terry and I are more than sisters. We're best friends. My heart breaks for my niece. She is experiencing her first loss of someone so close, and her pain is written all over her face.

We all go for a drive on Saturday, a long drive where we take dad to some of his favorite spots in the Adirondack country. We know this is the last time, on this side of eternity, anyway, that he'll see the landscape he's loved since childhood.

When we get home, dad is so tired, he can't assist us as we try to move him from his recliner to his bed. My sister and niece have left for home, so it's just mom and I. Mom feels helpless and scared and I'm worried for her. I'll need to leave in a few days too, and she'll have to face these situations alone then.

We've engaged the help of hospice, so she decides to call them. Hospice responds in less than ten minutes. A gentleman who looks like an NFL linebacker makes his way across the room. His eyes are kind, his words kinder. He picks dad up with the tenderness of a mother scooping a child into her arms and deposits hm gently into his bed.

The next few days are a blur of tension, fear on mom's part, useless attempts on mine to comfort her. A hospice nurse stops by twice a day, friends and relatives come by to visit. One of dad's doctors even makes a house call to check in on him. Mom spends time sitting by dad's bed, talking to him, grieving for him, reminiscing about their 45 years of marriage.

Dad has slipped into an altered state of consciousness now, sometimes waking up enough to look around and speak, sometimes grimacing with pain, but most of the time just peacefully sleeping, hanging in suspension between here and there. We sit in silence, listening to those breaths that come ragged and labored. Listening for the next one. Hoping we'll hear it. Praying we won't.

Wednesday moring is Valentine's Day. Mom steps into the shower and I am alone with dad. I hold his hand, stroke his hair, and a smile comes across my face, despite my grief. I'm reminded of the remark my sister made a few days ago. "If I was dying and you stroked my hair like that, I'd jump right up and slap you. I can't think of anything more annoying!"

Then I see it. The little trickle of blood that makes its way out of dad's mouth and meanders down the side of his chin. I grab a cloth and tenderly wipe it away, then reach for the swabs and clean the inside of his mouth. Three swabs, five, half a dozen, all blood-soaked. His chest ceases to move. His pain is no longer.

The warmth from the bathroom permeates the hallway as mom emerges from her shower.

"It's over, mom. He's gone." I put my hand on her arm, a feeble attempt at comfort.

"I need to get dressed and make the calls." The undertaker, hospice, my sister, a dozen other people who will want to know.

All I can think about is the Valentine's Day card I can't give her now because it's addressed to both mom and dad. Such an absurd thought at a time like this.

Andy, the undertaker, arrives. He's about the sweetest, most understanding man anyone would ever want to meet. He and his assistant have been in dad's room for about two minutes when I knock on the door. "Can I have a moment alone with my dad?" I ask.

Andy clears his throat, looks uncomfortable. "We dont' have the - uh - him, prepared yet."

"I know, but it doesn't matter. I'm a nurse. I've seen my share of dead people. Doesn't bother me a bit."

He hesitates, then smiles. "Sure."

I want to say a few last words, but the lump in my throat is too large. I can't choke the words out around it, so I kiss dad's cheek, hold his hand, and think the words. "I love you, dad. We'll always be forever close in spirit."

And I know with a rock solid certainty that he hears them.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Forever Close in Spirit - Part I

FEBRUARY 1996

I angle the wheelchair out of the narrow apartment door and work my way slowly down the hall. It feels off balance, like trying to drive a car that is poorly aligned. Dad reprimands me as I pull up short toward the elevator. "You don't know how to drive one of these things," he barks. I laugh nervously. He's right.

I edge the wheelchair to the picture window that looks out on a panoramic view of Lake Flower, surrounded by the village of Saranac Lake, the Adirondack Mountains rising in the distance. New fallen snow from the night before has turned the scene into a wonderland. Snow clings to the trees. Ice fishermen and ice skaters dot the lake.

Dad stares out the window without a word. I wonder how many memories flood his brain as he gazes out over the town where he grew up. He has shared most of them with me a thousand times. Tales of walking to school in snow three feet deep, using a soap-stone and blankets to keep warm on long trips to Plattsburgh in a cold car, stories of old girlfriends, teen pranks, and growing up with a houseful of siblings.

My own memories blend in with his. Memories of the old rope swing that hurled us into the water at the camp on Follensby Pond, rowing the old rowboat along the shore at daybreak, trips over Whiteface Mountain at sunset, walking through snow that creaked with every step, admiring the stars on a clear night.

"Let's go down to the sixth floor," he says. "I'd like to check in on Nancy Beamer. She's been so sick lately, and she never comes downstairs anymore."

I turn the wheelchair around and maneuver into the elevator. We laugh and joke about the way it groans. Two ladies enter the elevator on the eighth floor carrying packages, and we exchange comments about the bitter cold that has gripped the region for several days now.

When I rap on Nancy's door, a feeble voice inquires who is there. I give my dad's name, "and I'm his daughter," I add.

She bids us to come in. I thread the wheelchair gingerly through the door and between the furniture to where Nancy is sitting. She smiles at my dad and he asks her how she's feeling. They exchange brief stories about their doctors, their medical tests, and each other. He tells her good-bye and promises he'll be back to visit soon.

We travel down the hall to the elevator and make the trip to the first floor without any company. I wheel the chair out to the front door and we watch the snow that has again started falling at a rapid rate. A blast of cold air wraps itself around us as one of the other tenants enters. "How are you feeling?" he asks dad.

"Fine. Real good," is the reply. They smile and laugh together as I wander back towards the large room that serves as a meeting and recreation area for the tenants in the building. I sense a tug at my heartstrings as my gaze falls on the walnut baby-grand piano sitting in a corner of the room.

It is New Year's Eve, 1960, and the house is full of people, laughing, talking, joking, drinking. Dad is at the piano, his fingers caressing the keys easily, no apparent effort on his part to create the tunes that flow from the instrument. He has been playing for several minutes, working his way from one song to the next, old songs like "Misty" and "Button up Your Overcoat" and "Bye Bye Blackbird". He curses to himself as he strikes a wrong chord, but no one notices. I am sitting in a chair next to him, watching him and admiring him with my eyes. Maybe someday, I'll be able to play like him, but never like him really. He plays without music, tunes that are embedded in his brain and magically transformed to the keys. I wonder in my childish way if this is the year he will make a record of his music and become famous and then he won't have to work anymore.

"You know," dad says when I resume my position behind his wheelchair, "I came downstairs a few weeks ago and no one was around, so I thought I'd play the piano for a while. It was the funniest thing. It seemed like something was wrong with the keys. I couldn't get much sound out of it. Then it dawned on me that I was too weak to put enough pressure on the keys to play them."

A lump catches in my throat. "Did you ever make the tape you were going to make?" I ask after a moment.

"I made a list of all the songs I could think of that I knew. I think I came up with over a hundred of them. I got twenty or so on tape."

We have moved on down the hall and into the laundry room. The soft whir of the dryer is the only interruption. This is my big chance to say everything I want to say. These few moments alone with dad may be the only ones I get before the inevitable end. I check the dryer, find the clothes still quite wet, and push a couple more dimes into the slot. We sit in silence for a moment.

Dad looks up at me, a question in his eyes. "Well, what are we doing here? Are those clothes done or what?"

"No, I just put some more money in. I'll come back and check them again in a while." I shift position in the chair where I've chosen to take a seat. "I just wanted to say a few things to you, Dad," I begin, searching for the right words. "This room isn't exactly inspiring, but at least we're alone for a minute."

He nods and waits.

"I guess I just want to tell you how proud I am of you for facing all of this the way you have. You never complain, you continue to do everything you possibly can, you haven't just given up."

"It really hasn't been so bad," he answers. "I'm not in pain. The medication must be holding me pretty good. I get so weak and tired, though. I just can't understand it."

You are weak and tired because this evil thing is attacking your body and eating up every good cell in it. The horrible cancer is destroying your muscles and your bones and your body is fighting so hard to win the battle, but it won't win, and the more if fights, the more tired and weak and helpless you become.

"Well," I reassure him, "I think you are fantastic and so do the people in the building. You've been an inspiration to all of them. Every time I come downstairs I see someone who tells me how they admire your strength."

Dad looks around with a restlessness that signals he's ready to leave.

I'm not. Not yet.

"So," I say with a the hint of a chuckle in my voice, "I'm 45 and you're 76. Any advice?"

I wait for his reply, some utterance of great wisdom that will ease the pain in my heart, but dad remains silent. We never did carry on any deep philosophical conversations all the years he was healthy. Do I really expect anything different now?

A long moment passes. "Yeah." He sighs. "Don't get to be 76. It stinks."

I take his hand in mine. "I love you, dad, and I'll miss you a lot."

To be continued....

Thanks for reading my blog!



Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Benefits of Blogging

I started this blog about sixteen months ago. As I skimmed through the posts I've done during the time, it gave me pause to question what the benefit has been to others and to myself. Anyone who follows my posts can tell that I'm not a frequent blogger, nor, unfortunately, am I consistent. I don't have as many post in over a year as some other bloggers post in two months.

I hardly ever see a comment in response to the blog post itself, but that's okay. I read several other blogs and seldom comment, so that is not a measure of how often my words are read. Also, several people have contacted me via private email to let me know that they read what I wrote that week. I think I have problems blogging because I fear putting my real feelings "out there". Suppose I have an issue at work, for instance, and I really want to blog about it. What if the person I'm writing about reads my blog and feelings get hurt? Same with family members. I've seen blogs where others have done it, and I've often wondered if there were consequences to such posts.

One of the points I wish to make tonight is that I glean different things from different blogs. Some of the ones I read deal with various aspects of writing, some introduce new books, some have a new post every day. The ones I enjoy most, though, are the blogs where people write about the people and situations that are closest to their hearts.

I have one blogger friend who has been keeping her readers informed of her struggle to begin writing again after a long spell of nonwriting. She has been an inspiration to me. I spent several hours the other night rereading and tweaking some of my own work after reading some encouraging words on her blog. She recently talked about the Nifty 350 technique, which urges a writer to put down 350 words per day. Well, I've been writing this post for about fifteen minutes and I'm approaching 600 words. If I apply ten or fifteen minutes a day to my WIPs, this plan just might work! Thanks BK!

Part of the frustration for me is that there are so many blogs out there I'd like to keep up with, but if I read them all, I'd never write a word on my own for lack of time. So, I've had to be selective, and I know I'm missing out on some great words that someone else has written! I suppose it's the same with books, though. My list of "books to read" is almost as long, if not longer, than my list of "books read". Everytime I select another book to read, I wonder if I've chosen "a good one".

When I send out email, I always include the link to my web site and the title of my latest blog post. It's when I start answering email and realize I've had that same blog post title for way too long that I am prompted to update with another post.

I'd like to hear back from readers as to what blogs you like and why. Drop me a line and share your thoughts!

I'm still looking for stories to use on my K.I.D.S.S. page. Any stories about kids and what they are doing in their community or the life of another person are welcome!

Thanks for reading my blog!

 
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