Patrick E. Craig's Blog, page 5
November 25, 2013
Trouble in Paradise – The Amish Heiress: from The Paradise Chronicles
It was a cold and wet March day in Paradise. Spring had not yet arrived with her palette of vivid hues and the predominant color was brown – brown stubble, brown earth, dead grass in the front yard. The small swale beyond the pasture fence was filled with runoff from the winter snowmelt and a few solitary white ducks floated on the surface of the temporary pond, casting their reflections on the leaden surface that drearily mirrored the gray clouds gathered above the Hershberger farm.
Rachel Hershberger trudged down the access lane that led away from the house. Her feet sank inches into the soft mud and the edges of her dress bore the stains of her ill-advised trail breaking. Her face was red and a single tear had coursed its way down her cheek. She spoke out loud to no one in particular and her outburst roused the ducks from their peaceful repose to flutter a few feet across the pond and then settle back again.
“Why did he have to come back? Everything was fine without him…”
Now the tears began to flow freely down her face. She wiped them away but others that seemed eager to mar the loveliness of her face quickly replaced them. Her dark hair was held tightly in a bun beneath her kappe and the wool jacket she wore over her plain dress kept the March chill from her skin. But it did nothing to ease the chill in her heart.
The squishing of her boots in the mud mixed with an occasional sob and the rippling sound of the little creek that ran through the cottonwoods off to her right played a strangely discordant concerto that jarred against the serenity all around her. Rachel was absorbed in her sorrow and did not hear the soft clop of the horse’s hooves behind her until the small buggy pulled up next to her.
“A bit chilly for a walk in the mud, isn’t it, Rachel?”
Rachel looked up into the kindly face of Daniel King, the boy from the neighboring farm. He sat on the buggy seat with a quizzical look on his face.
“Go away, Daniel. I don’t need your indefatigable good nature right now.”
“Indefatigable! Ja, now there’s a fifty-dollar word. Come on Rachel, I’m your friend and you look like you could use one right now. Hop in and I’ll take you wherever you’re going and keep you tidy at the same time.”
Rachel stopped and looked up at Daniel. His handsome, beardless face was smiling at her from under the black hat and he sat straight and tall on the seat. Rachel’s shoulders dropped and she gave a sigh of resignation. She really wanted to be by herself, but the muddy road had become an obstacle that was wearing her out. She climbed up on the seat next to Daniel.
“You and your papa fighting again?”
“Yes, if it’s any of your business!”
“Look, Rachel, don’t go there. You have spoken with me many times about Jonathan so it’s not like I’m prying into your secrets. What was it this time?”
Rachel slumped down in the seat.
“I signed up for another class at the Junior College – a class in animal husbandry. I…I want to be a veterinarian, Daniel, but my papa told me to drop the class.”
“Why, because Amish girls are supposed to stay home after eighth grade and learn to be subservient little servants to the men?”
Rachel looked at Daniel in surprise.
“Something like that.”
She looked again. Daniel wasn’t smiling. He was staring straight ahead and his face was set in a stern mask.
Rachel suddenly realized that she might have an ally in this handsome young man.
“Why, Daniel, you surprise me. I wouldn’t expect anything like that out of you.”
Daniel shook the reins over the back of the horse and relaxed. The smile returned to his face and he looked over at Rachel.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Rachel. I’d be more than willing to share it with you if…if you’d let me court you.”
Rachel turned abruptly away and stared out at the brown fields of Paradise, Pennsylvania.
“Don’t…Daniel. We’ve talked about this before. You’re my friend, but that’s all I feel for you. Besides, I don’t want to get married. I have…other plans.”
Daniel didn’t let the barbed remark ruffle his calm demeanor.
“So what are you going to do, Rachel? Run away to the big city and become an animal doctor? Wouldn’t you find more work around here?”
Rachel turned back to Daniel and now there was excitement in her voice.
“Don’t you see, Daniel? There’s so much out there, so much more to life than a little farm in Paradise, Pennsylvania. There’s music and art, and museums – the whole country and even the whole world to see. I want to float down the Nile and see the pyramids. I want to go to the Louvre and stay there for weeks. I want to torment the guards at Buckingham Palace and see if I can make them smile. Daniel, don’t you ever want to go, to see, to do?”
Daniel looked down at the reins in his strong hands.
“All I want is to stay here and work with my papa and then when it’s my time, take over the farm and raise the finest horses in Pennsylvania.”
Rachel gave an exasperated sigh.
“Oh, Daniel, that’s why we could never be together. I want to be part of a much bigger world, and in order to do that I…I…
“…Can’t stay Amish?” Daniel asked softly.
Rachel looked at Daniel without speaking. The answer lay heavy between them in a silence broken only by the soft clopping of the horse’s hooves on the muddy road.
The Amish Heiress – From The Paradise Chronicles by Patrick E. Craig – Coming Soon
November 8, 2013
Choices – From ‘Jenny’s Choice’ – The Apple Creek Dreams series
Sometimes I think that life is like a rushing river that begins its journey high in the mountains, tumbles down over jagged rocks, rushes headlong over cliffs, and pours booming through the portals of nameless chasms until at last it breaks free of the confines of harsh stone walls and finds a broad plain spread before it – and then the once chaotic millrace flows deep and quiet through lush, verdant meadows, between banks that hold it tenderly.
The choices we make on the way to this place are usually made quickly and without thinking, like the one a boatman makes as his vessel poises on the brink before it plunges headlong into the rushing maelstrom of the rapids. These are the choices we formulate in an instant that, if we live, we look back on and understand, with a quiet shudder in our soul, the eternal enormity of a moment.
But even so, I think the choices we make as we drift in the place of safety and security are those that can be the most consequential. For every soldier knows that it is in the lush growth beside a quiet river, or beneath the deep underbrush of a peaceful forest that the enemy is most likely to be hidden.
Choices – From The Journals of Jenny Hershberger
Jenny’s Choice by Patrick E. Craig – Coming February 1, 2014
November 1, 2013
Prayer – The Road Home – Book Two, Apple Creek Dreams
Prayer is a wonderful gift that God has given to His children. As we pray we must believe that God has placed a force in our hands that can shake the very heavens and bring His power down to earth in our hour of need. But speaking our supplications is only half of prayer. The other half, and the most important, is listening to what God speaks to us…
Jerusha knelt by the bed and prayed for Jenny. She felt helpless, alone and fearful. As the hours went by she wept and begged, challenged and whimpered, but the heavens were silent. Finally, when she was drained and exhausted, a thought came to her.
This is what I did before Jenna died. I cried out to you, but I didn’t listen when you were trying to reach my heart.
Jerusha stopped then, and lifted a simple prayer to God.
“Jenny is your daughter, Lord, and you have a plan and a purpose for her life. If it is your will, let me be a vessel for You to work through to help her.”
As she finished her prayer, a picture came to her mind, clear and distinct. It was the quilt – the quilt that she made for Jenna but that ultimately became Jenny’s salvation. Suddenly, a great urgency came over her. She rose from her prayer and went to her sewing room. The old cedar chest stood against the wall. She knelt before it and opened the lid. Pieces of fabric and batting filled the chest and the faint, comforting smell of the cedar wood rose up to greet her. She began to take some of the pieces out and lay them aside until she came to the parcel wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with string. She lifted it out reverently and placed it on the floor, untied the string and opened the package. There was the Rose of Sharon quilt, the most beautiful quilt she had ever made. Tenderly she spread it out on the floor. There was something about just looking at the quilt that built her faith, something of both of her daughters that comforted her and gave her hope. The red silk rose in the center of the quilt with its hundreds of petals, glowed in the light, and the rich blue silk backing set it off like a jewel. It was still a beautiful quilt even though it was ruined.
Then she heard a voice within her, the same comforting voice that had led her through the storm so many years ago; the voice that showed her the truth about herself as she waited in the cabin for Reuben to come. A familiar, deep peace filled her soul.
Jenny’s life is like this quilt. Though it is beautiful, it is not whole. There are pieces that are missing and stains that must be washed away. You have been chosen to be part of that cleansing. You are a key to Jenny’s happiness and wholeness.
Startled by the clarity of the words, she answered out loud.
“But I can’t do anything. I’m here, alone. Reuben and Bobby are the answer.”
Again the voice came to her.
I will say again – Jenny’s life is like this quilt. Your hands will give you the key to your prayers, and through them her life can be made whole. Kumme, Dochter! There is work to be done.
Hope leaped up in her heart. Suddenly she gathered up the quilt in her arms and stood up. It was clear to her now. Jerusha knew what she must do …
Prayer – From THE ROAD HOME by Patrick E. Craig
October 24, 2013
Jenny’s Choice – Book Three in the Apple Creek Dreams series – Coming Soon!
When I first started writing the Apple Creek Dreams Series, I was amazed at the way my characters seemed to spring from the ground, fully developed, letting me see and record all of their strengths and flaws as though I was writing their biographies. First I wrote about Jerusha Springer and her encounter with God in the Great Storm of 1950 that paralyzed Ohio. Then I shared the story of Jenny Springer, Jerusha and Reuben’s adopted daughter, and her impassioned search for her own identity, whether or not that would take her outside the Amish community of Apple Creek. For the third book, I fully intended to write the story of Rachel Hershberger, Jenny’s daughter.
When I finished The Road Home, I was startled to discover that I had come to love Jenny Hershberger – her strength, her passion, her mind, her love for God – she had captured my heart. I kept trying to move on to Rachel’s tale, but I could not. So I asked my publisher if I could continue with Jenny’s story and they were gracious enough to give me permission to do so.
So here is the rest of Jenny’s story. For you romantics, it is the story of true love. For you pragmatists, a gift given and a gift received. And for those of you who long for adventure, it is the journey of a tiny girl who is found beside a frozen pond in the heart of a blizzard, the road a young woman travels upon to find her way home, and the coming to fruition of the gift that God placed in Jenny’s heart.
Jenny’s Choice – Coming February 1, 2014
October 20, 2013
The Hideout – From THE ROAD HOME – Apple Creek Dreams
Jorge and Luis hurried down the stairs to the door at the bottom. A faint glow was coming up over the trees as they stepped out into the ravine.
“It’s going to be dawn in a little while, ” Luis said. “We have to find the girl before it gets light. Take my flashlight and go that way,” he said, pointing to the left. “I’ll go down here. Look for little tracks. If you don’t see anything in twenty minutes, get back here quick! Those guys will be occupado up there for a while until they figure out the girl is gone. Then they will come lookin’.”
The clouds had cleared away and there was enough light to see the trail. Jorge went left and Luis ran to the right. Jorge ran down the trail looking for tracks. In a few minutes he came upon a set of tracks coming up out of the creek bed. He looked down. The snow had been disturbed and he could see where someone had lain in the snow. He walked over and looked closer. There were some spots of blood in the snow between two rocks and something had been pulled up out of the sand. He looked up and saw some broken branches on a bush several feet above the stream.
“She must have fallen off up there and landed down here,” he said to himself.
He looked closer at the snow between the rocks. There was blood and what looked like a piece of skin on the rocks and spots in the snow.
“It looks like she hurt herself. That means she’s walking slow.”
Jorge ran back to the bank and looked at the tracks. The left foot was dragging in the snow and there was a strange mark on the left side of the tracks. Jorge could see that Jenny must be using a stick to lean on. He forgot what Luis had said and hurried on down the trail following the tracks. He saw a place in the snow where she must have fallen down, for there was a handprint and the snow off the trail was disturbed. In about twenty minutes he came to an area where the walls of the ravine closed in. The tracks led on down the trail around a corner. Jorge ran around the corner and stopped in bewilderment. Ahead of him, shrubs and trees overhung the trail and the snow had not come down here. Jenny’s tracks led up to the edge of the snow and then disappeared on the hard ground under the trees …
Jenny hobbled down the path leaning on the stick. The tie line was strong nylon and it supported the broken pine branch against her ankle but her ankle throbbed painfully and it was slow going. Suddenly she stepped on a hidden rock, rolled her bad ankle, and pitched forward into the snow. The pain was agonizing. She tried to get up and realized that she was going to have a hard time going any further. She looked around for a place to hide. The light from the sun was slowly coming up. Ahead of her was a clump of bushes and it seemed that it was darker behind them. She randomly poked the pine stick into the bushes and instead of the wall of the ravine her stick encountered a hole in the side of the hill.
A cave!
Jenny knew she had to hide somewhere but her tracks would give her away. Then she remembered something her Uncle Bobby had told her about hiding from the Japanese when he was a scout in the Marines.
“We would walk out to a place where the ground made our tracks hard to see and then walk backwards in our tracks until we came to where we wanted to hide,” he had told her. “Then we would jump off the trail and walk backwards using a branch to sweep our tracks away. Lots of times the enemy would walk right by where we were hiding and lose us in the woods ahead. Some of the Indian guys taught us that in training.”
Up ahead the ravine narrowed and the snow had not gotten down onto the trail because of the brush overhanging it. Jenny broke a branch off one of the Scotch Broom bushes along the trail and walked up the trail until there was no more snow. She stepped out onto the hard trail and took a few steps. Then she went back and as carefully as she could stepped backward in her tracks until she came to the bush that hid the mouth of the cave. She gathered her strength and jumped off the trail. Again an agonizing pain shot up her leg. She gritted her teeth and began to inch backwards into the bush, sweeping her tracks as she went. She pushed through and there was the cave. It had a narrow, low, entrance but it looked big enough for her to wriggle through. She knelt down and crawled in. Inside, the ceiling rose up into the darkness and the floor was dry and sandy. She could see a little but not much. The cave seemed to go back a lot farther than she thought. Her ankle was throbbing horribly and she was exhausted. Suddenly she heard a rustling sound up in the roof of the cave and, out of the dark, something black came at her. Bats! Jenny’s heart leaped up and she almost screamed. The bats fluttered all around her, brushing her with their wings in their effort to get out. She heard their tiny squeaks and felt their bodies hitting her head and shoulders and then she collapsed in a heap on the floor…
From THE ROAD HOME by Patrick E. Craig
October 6, 2013
Falling in Love with Your Characters | The Road Home
I think Kay hit it right on the head when she wrote this note to me about characters. As storytellers it is our job to give the reader first a great story that holds them enthralled until the last dot at the end of the last sentence. But a good story is worthless without characters that, as Kay said, we feel like we could meet on the street. For me, Jenny Springer Hershberger is a character like that.I first met Jenny Springer as a lost little girl in the heart of the great Thanksgiving storm of 1950, when she was rescued and adopted by Jerusha Springer in A Quilt For Jenna. Then The Road Home told the story of Jenny’s desperate need to find her birth parents, even if it might take her outside her adopted faith. Originally, the third book in the Apple Creek Dreams series was to tell the story of Rachel Hershberger, Jenny’s daughter – The Amish Heiress. But when I finished The Road Home, I was amazed to discover that I had come to love Jenny Springer, now Jenny Hershberger. I loved her strength, her passion, her mind, her love for God – she had captured my heart. I kept trying to move on to Rachel’s tale, but I could not. So I wrote Jenny’s Choice and it is in book three of the Apple Creek Dreams series that Jenny discovers her talent for writing. And as I came to know Jenny with each page I realized that I was crafting her from my own heart. She was becoming what I had always wanted to be – a good writer.
Safe in loving arms I rest
My cares away on spirit wings
And here my aching soul caressed
By loving words the angel brings
To whisper in my papa’s ear
His strength for me breaks all my fear
And love with gentle voice can sing
And tell me how my life is blessed
My papa’s arms shall hold me fast
And bring me safely home at last
__________
From the Journals of Jenny Springer Hershberger
In The Road Home, Jenny’s greatest need is to find her birth parents – not because she doesn’t love Reuben and Jerusha Springer, but because there is something missing in the foundation of her life that is keeping her from becoming who God has intended her to be. At one point in the book, Jenny’s mama, Jerusha is praying for Jenny and the Lord reveals something very important about Jenny’s life.
As she was praying, Jerusha remembered something Reuben had taught her. They had visited a neighbor’s farm one day and watched as the men helped their neighbor tear down the framing of what was to be a new barn and start over.
“Why are they tearing the barn down?” she had asked Reuben.
“Brother King made a mistake when he laid the foundation,” Reuben said. “It was not level and true. It was pointed out to him when the first wall went up and the men had a great deal of difficulty plumbing it up. You see Jerusha, when a foundation is not laid properly and you build on it, everything in nature, even gravity itself, conspires to drag that wall down. But if the foundation is true, then when you build on it, gravity pulls the wall straight down onto the foundation and it will stand for years, supporting itself.”
She had wondered about Reuben’s words that day, not really understanding, but now as she looked at the quilt, they became clear to her. Everything in Jenny’s life had been built on a poor foundation and so even nature had worked against her, robbing her of peace and joy and leaving her with a sense of incompleteness.
“That is what happened to Jenny. The foundation of her life was not laid in straight and true and she has been struggling to build on that poor foundation.”
When Jenny discovered who she really was (and I’ll let you read about that in The Road Home), she became complete and whole and then her life began to unfold as the Lord had always intended it to be. And it was at that point in the story that Jenny Springer became real to me and I realized that her story was my story. I had something missing in the foundation of my life until I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And, just as Jenny discovers that the road home will never be revealed until she lets God lead the way, so my gifts and callings never really manifested themselves in and through me until I gave my life over to His care.
When a character in your book teaches you a life lesson like that, you have to love them.
Do you have a character you have written about, or read about, that you have come to love?
First posted as a guest blog at Kate Lloyd’s blog – Welcome to Kate’s Blog
Excerpts from THE ROAD HOME, published September 1, 2013 and available at the following locations:
• Amazon Print & Kindle – http://tinyurl.com/q3qda6k
• My Author Page – http://tinyurl.com/megefh6
• Harvest House Publishers – http://tinyurl.com/89bson7
• My Web Site – http://www.patrickecraig.com/
WATCH THE TRAILER – http://youtu.be/EiDk8rYFhek
September 20, 2013
Meet & Greet / Book Signing – Saturday September 28th, Barnes & Noble, Santa Rosa – 2PM
Join me if you are in the area. Saturday, September 28th, 700 4th Street, Santa Rosa, California at 2:00pm
September 12, 2013
The Long And Winding Road: The Road Home – Apple Creek Dreams
When Johnny awoke the room was pitch black and for a moment he panicked. He didn’t know where he was, and the darkness and the stale smells were crushing down on him. It felt like someone was standing on his chest. He gasped for breath, jerked up in the bed and almost cried out. Then it came back to him that he was in a crummy motel room in Tooele, Utah, and the reality of the past two days came flooding in on him, accompanied by a deep sense of hopelessness. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and knocked his knee against the bed stand. In the darkness, he fumbled for the lamp and finally found the switch. He had to turn it three clicks before the light came on. There was a small clock by the lamp. It was three a.m. He had slept almost ten hours but he did not feel rested. His stomach gurgled and he realized he was hungry, but he couldn’t imagine finding a restaurant open at this hour in this tiny town. He got up and went in to the bathroom. He stood in front of the mirror and looked at himself. The face that looked back was haggard and the eyes were bloodshot. He turned on the tap, filled his hands and plunged his face into the cold water. He did it three more times until he felt the cobwebs leaving his mind. He knew he smelled bad and he felt really grubby, so he slipped off his clothes and got into the shower. When he turned on the tap, the ice-cold water hit him like a thousand sharp needles. The rush of cold shocked him awake and he struggled with the rusty tap, trying to turn the hot water all the way on. It didn’t help much and the best he got was luke-warm. He reached out of the narrow stall, grabbed his razor out of the shaving kit and gave himself a blind shave. When he was finished he grabbed the towel, dried himself off and went back into the bedroom. He put on the fresh underwear and looked around for his pants. They were lying by the bed where he had dropped them, so he slipped them on, put on some fresh socks, pulled on his boots and sweatshirt, and put on his leather jacket. He grabbed the briefcase, left the room key on the stand by the bed, turned out the light, and went to the door. Johnny cracked it open and peeked out.
The neon sign in front of the hotel flashed a strange orange-pink light on the courtyard. There was only one other car, an old Chevy, parked down the row. The sky was overcast and he could not see any moon or stars. A few crickets chirped from the vacant lot next to the motel. Nothing stirred and there was no traffic on the street. Far off in the distance he could hear a big truck using its compression brakes as it slowed to take the exit off the interstate. The sound carried across the flat desert and fractured the silence. The office was dark and a green neon ‘vacancy’ sign glowed in the window. He slipped out, shut the door behind him, and walked through the passage by the ice machine. There were a few vending machines there and he bought four Mounds bars and a couple of bottles of Fresca. Then he walked toward the alley behind the motel. His van was parked where he had left it and he climbed in. The knapsack was still where he had left it and he slipped the briefcase under the seat and made sure that it was well hidden. Satisfied, he took a deep breath, started up the van, and drove onto the street. In a few miles he came back to Burmester and turned east onto the freeway. He drove awhile, lost in his thoughts, and then he began to pay attention to his surroundings. Off to his left was a deep darkness and he couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Then as a car passed him going west, the opposite side of the road came into view for a moment and Johnny realized that he was looking out over water. It was the Great Salt Lake. He remembered driving past it on the way to San Francisco. He remembered thinking back then that it was one of the dreariest places on the face of the earth.
Another car passed going west, followed by a string of cars. He could see the waves of the lake, lapping against the bare dirt shore. A dead stump sticking up out of the water came into view. Then the clouds over the lake opened up a bit and the light from a dim new moon faintly lit the bleak landscape, touching the waters of the lake with a ghastly illumination. The starkness of his surroundings and the events of the past few days crowded in on him and fear gripped him. He saw Shub’s eyes, dead, like this horrible place, and he almost ran off the road. His breath was coming in gasps so he pulled over to the side of the road.
Get it together, Johnny! Do something! Get a grip on yourself.
Suddenly a strange thought came to him, strange because he had never had a thought like this before. He slowly bowed his head and gave voice to his fears.
“God, if you are real, I need your help. I don’t know what to do or where to go. I’ve never asked for your help before, but if you can hear me, I need it now.”
Johnny sat silently behind the wheel. His breathing quieted and the pounding of his heart slowed. A big truck roared by and the wind shook his van. He didn’t hear an answer …
Excerpt from Chapter 4, The Road Home, by Patrick E. Craig
September 8, 2013
AND THE WINNERS ARE…
Drawn Randomly from a hat, the winners are…
Judy Watters
Brenda Hendershot
Debbie Waters
Karla Hanns
Brenda Merwin
Leave me a private message on FaceBook with your snail mail address and I’ll send you your signed copy.
Thanks, everyone, for entering the contest and helping me launch THE ROAD HOME.
Patrick,
P.S. I’l; be doing more giveaways, so if you didn’t win this time, don’t give up hope!!!
