Here's Miggy!

Dear From the Heart Readers I want to introduce you to my dear friend and author, member of the Pencil Box Crew ( what we call my author group) Miggy Krentel. When I asked Miggy for this interview she humbly agreed to submit to it.

Miggy tell us a little about yourself

I am quite ancient. But this is what I know about me, for sure.

The 27^th day of May, in the year 1921, witnessed my birth, on Staten Island New York. I had two brothers, very different, so early on I learned two sparring maneuvers. Allen ignored me so I pretended a certain nonchalance that rendered him seething but harmless. Howard, the older of the two, tantalized and teased me without mercy. We were good friends until two years ago when he died of cancer.

What are you hoping your writing will accomplish?

I hope my latent gift of writing will topple somebody’s walls and let them out and at the same time give others entrance into their own ordinary yet hapless lives. I wish with every fiber of my being that my simple writing could persuade them to be disarmingly frank and vulnerable. Only then will they find meaning in their lives. Only then will they find Jesus. Every life lived should count for something.

How are you using state-of-the-art technology in your everyday writing life?

I am writing this treatise on something called a computer which, at times, I consider state-of-the-art. However I have discovered it is not to be trusted. It is at one and the same time both helper and hindrance. And oh, how very loud my protests grow. For with every fiber of my being I know that it is basically the fault of some unseen Satanic menace sleeping at will in the Junk Mail subways and popping out at the worst paragraph.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Rarely do I feel inspired. I think I am more of a reporter spectating on not only my own life but the lives of “others”; what makes Johnny run and where is he heading? Oddly enough, I cannot know for certain.

Is there an area in your writing that you are working on developing more?

Bodily discipline, showing up for work, remaining seated until finished and listening to my inner conscience. “Be who you is, for if you is who you ain’t, then you ain’t who you is.” For when my finished literary offering is lifted up in the air for everyone to see my underbelly, much like when your car is on the pneumatic lift in the garage and everyone sees exactly what they are looking at. Then as you stand there with your hands behind your back, you will begin to notice all the extra words you have imprisoned. The unneeded adjectives, the extra words used to tell the same story all over again.

Do you have a favorite writing “How to” book?

I dip and dab into most of my instructional books and gasp at certain sentences which seem to encapsulate the truth, but in spite of that I never read them from cover to cover and soon I forget it. SORRY.

Have you had to overcome any obstacles in your writing journey?

Yes.

1. Six children of my own.

2. The founding of a residential school from the first diaper pin up to a present population of over 300

3. Care-giving for three ninety – year – old ladies; his mother, my mother and my mother’s best friend.

4. The special care for my Down’s syndrome daughter who blew out 46 candles last month

5. The shattering attack on my dear husband from Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s who died in 1996.

All these combined to nuke my allotment of time.

What are you presently working on now?

My most important thing right now is to finish my book and find someone to publish it.

The book I am writing is written with the pen of an almost ninety year old resident living on the compound of a retirement community for independent seniors. It could be called the Rights of Passage or Survival Skills 101 or Aging for Dummies. We can laugh together, weep a little, and swallow our sadness because we have taken a peek into our own future. The only good thing about getting old is that soon we will see our God. I can hardly wait. And I will see my dearest love, Paul my husband and my little baby Martha who went to be with Jesus at six months of age. I want to tell my friends” Hey, don’t give up. It’s not over yet. Live out your every breath for Him. Tell others about your Savior. They may not ever have heard the story and you may only be the one left.

IN ADDITION TO THAT PROJECT

I am embarked on writing a series of books (picture story books of numbers from 1 through 10) written in rhyme with cartoon-like illustrations and dedicated to absolute biblical accuracy.

They would be for the Mother Goose set to tempt them to memorize much like the “one-two-buckle your-shoe” crowd. I love to rhyme and I have finished five books already. Two of these have already been published. Unfortunately my illustrator died. These were also already produced by Word Records on 33 1/3 long playing records. There is no more time, it seems.

What led you to becoming a writer?

Honestly, I must confess that it is really not my career choice. And, regardless of that statement, I am driven to reduce each happenstance to paper, either an old lady’s folly or the perseverance of one of Diana Flegal’s Pencil Box Crew.

What I like: Scrabble and rhyming

What I don’t like: Summers – no more family vacations.

Where is home? Pennsylvania

What is my passion? Writing and telling kids’ Bible stories

If I could run a charity, it would be for: physically and mentally challenged kids.

Time is a snail, reluctant to move

Dragging each footstep

Lest change would behoove

Chaotic upheavals

Unknown to the pace

Of monotonous mankind

running its race.