Thursday, October 30, 2008

The Jade Owl is Now Available at Amazon.com


The Jade Owl, the 1st Installment of The Jade Owl Legacy Series, is now available in paperback (on the Kindle also).


Description: "In China they whisper about the Jade Owl and its awful power. This ancient stone, commissioned by the Empress Wu and crafted by a mineral charmer, long haunted the folk of the Middle Kingdom until it vanished into an enigma of legend and lore. Now the Jade Owl is found. It wakes to steal the day from day. Its power to enchant and distort rises again. Its horror is revealed to a band of five, who must return it to the Valley of the Dead before the laws of ch’i are set aside in favor of destruction’s dance. Five China Hands, each drawn through time’s thin fabric by the bird, discover enchantment on the secret garland. Five China Hands, and one holds the key to the world’s fate. Five China Hands. Only one Jade Owl - but it’s awake and in China, they whisper again. Professor Rowden Gray has come to San Francisco following a new opportunity at the East Asian Arts and Culture Museum, only to find that the opportunity has evaporated. Desperate, he means to end his career in a muddle of pity and Scotch, but then things happen. He latches on to a fascinating young man who is pursuing a lost relic that Professor Gray has in fact been seeking. Be careful for what you seek - you may just find it. Thus begins a journey that takes the professor and his companions on a spirited adventure across three-thousand miles of Chinese culture and mystery - a quest to fulfill a warrant long set out to ignite the world in myth and legend. The Jade Owl is the beginning of a series - a legacy that fulfills a terrible truth; and in China, they whisper again."


An Early review: "Brilliantly written fantasy for people who don't read fantasy"5 stars Review By L. Cone "reconexegete" (Philadelphia, PA USA)


"Sinologist Rowden Gray, reeling from his failure to get a San Francisco museum post, falls in with a seemingly unlikely group of people bent upon achieving a strange coition of sorts of Chinese objets d'art. After taking up with one of the scions of his prolific (in more ways than one) intellectual mentor, John Battle, he joins a one-eyed Native American artist, a Chinese-American martial arts expert, and the scion's faithful drag-queen lover, as they embark on a wild chase to reach their objective. Much of the action takes place in a lovingly-described China. This is fantasy for people who don't read fantasy, adventure for those who avoid adventure books. The little bits of surrealism are a seasoning for the great writing, rather than a substitute for it, as is often the case in so many works of this type. A very enjoyable book."


Enjoy this one, my dear readers.Edward C. Patterson

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Three Links that Could Change Your Writing Life

Simply put, the world of Publishing is radically changing (has changed). Publishers cannot provide the services to authors that they once could. After 7 published books on Amazon.com in under a year and almost $1,200.00 in physical sales e-Book and Paperback and at $0 cost, I offer my fellow bloggers -

THREE LINKS THAT COULD CHANGE YOUR WRITING LIFE

Digitalpublications (Amazon.com)
http://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin

CreateSpace (an Amazon company)
http://www.createspace.com/

Amazon Forum:Have You Published a Book on the Kindle - Tell Us About It - Amazon Forum (some 6,000 posts from nearly 200 participants)
http://www.amazon.com/Have-you-published-book-Kindle/forum/FxBVKST06PWP9B/Tx3IZAKD22TKOQ0/1/ref=cm_cd_dp_tft_tp?%5Fencoding=UTF8&asin=B000FI73MA&store=fiona-hardware

If the first 2 links mystify, go to the third and wallow in the world of the Indie-Author and . . . find some courage and get some readers - real readers.

Edward C. Patterson
Paperback
Turning Idolater http://www.amazon.com/dp/1440422109Bobby's Trace http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1434893960Cutting the Cheese http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1434893847No Irish Need Apply http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1434893952The Closet Clandestine http://www.amazon.com/dp/1438220502Come,Wewoka http://www.amazon.com/dp/1438227639/Surviving an American Gulag http://www.amazon.com/dp/1438247230
Kindle
Turning Idolater http://www.amazon.com/Turning-Idolater/dp/B001FWZ92Q/Cutting the Cheese http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0010K2ER6Bobby's Trace http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00150Z5HCNo Irish Need Apply http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012NOW44The Closet Clandestine http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0018V3WBOCome, Wewoka http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001A7HMT4Surviving an American Gulag http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BOST1G

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Distributive Characterization – Luke Oliver Manifested

There are many ways to develop a character, the most accepted, through the heroic arc, where the protagonist journeys and experiences events, people and obstacles. Thus, the protagonist grows. Another way is through stunted fermentation, where the character has grown and is at a frustrating impasse that is never overcome. Finally, there is distributive characterization, a method I use in my ribald comic novel Cutting the Cheese.


In Cutting the Cheese, the protagonist is a newly emerging gay man, Luke Oliver, still clinging to his ideals and somewhat fearful of every step he takes. He is thrust (self-thrusted) into a frolicsome gay envionment where various stages of his possible future development are portrayed by other characters. There is the over-the-top hustler, the pedantic, ambitious playwright, the snobby child psychologist, the nosey busy body, the wealthy sugar daddy, the jousting couple, the nubile gym bunny and the old, jaded queen. Call it the seven ages of gay men, if you will, but the hierarchy of possibility that stretches before Luke Oliver’s feet are like the doors of Bluebeard’s Castle. Luke is alive to them all. That he flees the scene (and not in terror) and survives by dint of his ideals (and the gym bunny), never precludes that he still might become a cloying playwright or steel tushied old art dealer. The only character that he could never become is the bulldog lesbian that drapes herself in cellophane and storms down the spiral staircase. (See previous post : The Case of Bambi Stern).


Distributive characterization does deprive some characters of their anticipated arc, but since they are possibilities and not final realities, it’s an acceptable literary gamble. It also serves comedy better than high drama, because comedy is as ethereal as life, while drama pounds the square pegs into round holes and disregards the sawdust. In fact, Cutting the Cheese, the dicing of sharp-cheddar into distributive pieces is just the thing for tickling the funny bone. It’s not until the cheese platter is dumped into the trashcan that the air clears for serious probing.


Edward C. Patterson

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Halloween Read - "M. Night Shyamalen Beware"

Here's a Hallowen read for you
Bobby's Trace
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1434893960 (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00150Z5HC(Kindle)

"Do ghosts mourn the living? Perry Chaplin is in mourning for his life partner, Bobby - a time of stress, notwithstanding. The more he drifts, the more he becomes unhinged until he's one room short of a rubber one. "Get a grip, Perry." So he takes his chances on a blind date, which further plunges him along the nightmare highway. He gets an unsought lesson in life-after-death that turns his bereavement into a horrific adventure. Come peek through Perry Chaplin's mysterious window. See what there is to see. Enter Our Lady of Perpetual Grace, where the holy water boils and the confessionals whisper. What lurks in the rectory's attic? What lies beneath the surface of life and death? What comes in Bobby's - in Bobby's trace? Do ghosts mourn the living? Perry Chaplin knows. Will you? "



Do the Dead Mourn the Living? The Case of Bobby's Trace
================================================
Haunting, my novel, Bobby’s Trace, is a most unusual ghost story. Readers have contacted me with questions concerning the title spook, because they have never encountered anything like him before. Traditionally, literary ghosts are either vengeful, ethereal, wise, or desperately trapped. Bobby may have all these attributes, but his most pronounced characteristic is that he is in mourning — mourning for his lover and for his life. While he is the antagonist to Perry Chaplin’s stressed-out protagonist, Bobby is also a protagonist, trying to figure out the new world that has engulfed him.

As a fantasy writer, I realize that our task is to create parallel worlds, but with Bobby’s Trace, it is the trace that concerns us — the wake he creates as he tries to pass into the next world. We see this world only through Perry’s presence. He channel’s it, a doorway that opens only through him. Perry has wandered into a crack between life and death and is as confused as Bobby.

However, while Perry is trying desperately to get on with his life, nothing can nudge Bobby onward to his death — well, not nothing, but no spoilers here. Writing about death and mourning is a writer’s preoccupation. Most writers do it. Even J. K. Rowling’s landmark heptology, Harry Potter, has death as its principle theme. Mourning is something I know about, but I wondered whether the dead mourn the living. Is there a reciprocation between the worlds — a Taoist balance, a feng-shui between life and death. To this I added the notion that a ghost’s mourning is fed by the level of a beloved’s mourning — a lover’s desperate holdfast. Denial on its pinnacle. Of course, to turn this clinical discussion into a novel that touches the heart is another task altogether. Balancing pace in this short work depends on mutual themes — deception, renewal and sleight of hand. Still, I am pleased that so many readers have seen fit to express themselves to me by mail and in reviews that Bobby’s eyes still haunt them beyond the last page."

What Readers say about Bobby's Trace
===============================


"A subtle and wry humor never detracts from the intensity of the characterizations, which rather unfold like the peeling of an onion to reveal unnexpected layers and depths."


"I highly recommend Bobby's Trace and look forward to reading Mr. Patterson's other material."


"Bobby's Trace is a hauntingly beautiful exposition of one man's failing sanity in the face of prolonged grief. Touching and terribly heart wrenching. M. Night Shyamalan Beware."


"WOW ! Well, I'm glad I stumbled across this little treasure!"


"Impressive. Mr. Patterson has mastered the challenge of bringing his characters to life. I had no difficulty visualizing the characters and events, which allows the reader to forget they are reading a book."

"When I finished the book, I was tempted to re-read it just to experience it all over again. This was a great book, a joy to read, and one I'll want to visit again."

"Bobby's Trace is a combination of ghost-story, love-story and mystery novel, held together with the author's trademark black humour. At times bizarre and terrifying yet also beautifully uplifting, Edward C Patterson has crafted a literary jewel."

" . . . fast paced and I couldn't stop reading. Great twist at the end. I never suspected a thing!!"

Amazon Rating: 4 and 1/2 stars (9 reviews - full reviews on site or at http://www.dancaster.com/)

Come read Bobby's Trace
==================


Grab some popcorn, turn on your itty-bitty reading lamps and spook-up your Halloween reading.

Edward C. Patterson, "M. Night Shyamalan Beware."

Monday, October 13, 2008

The Jade Owl is Coming in November and In China, They Whisper Again

After eight years in the making, the first book of The Jade Owl Legacy Series, simply The Jade Owl, will be released for publication on or about the first week in November. Early readers have received this work with enthusiasm, so I look forward to see this fantasy/adventure in full flight. Here's the descriptive blurb:

"In China they whisper about the Jade Owl and its awful power. This ancient stone, commissioned by the Empress Wu and crafted by a mineral charmer, long haunted the folk of the Middle Kingdom until it vanished into an enigma of legend and lore. Now the Jade Owl is found. It wakes to steal the day from day. Its power to enchant and distort rises again. Its horror is revealed to a band of five, who must return it to the Valley of the Dead before the laws of ch’i are set aside in favor of destruction’s dance. Five China Hands, each drawn through time’s thin fabric by the bird, discover enchantment on the secret garland. Five China Hands, and one holds the key to the world’s fate. Five China Hands. Only one Jade Owl — but it’s awake and in China they whisper again.

Professor Rowden Gray has come to San Francisco following a new opportunity at the East Asian Arts and Culture Museum, only to find that the opportunity has evaporated. Desperate, he means to end his career in a muddle of pity and Scotch, but then things happen. He latches on to a fascinating young man who is pursuing a lost relic that Professor Gray has in fact been seeking. Be careful for what you seek — you may just find it. Thus begins a journey that takes the professor and his companions on a spirited adventure across three-thousand miles Chinese culture and mystery — a quest to fulfill a warrant long set out to ignite the world in myth and legend. The Jade Owl is the beginning of a series — a legacy that fulfills a terrible truth; and in China they whisper again."


So mark your calendars, and get set to join the Professor and his eclectic team of adventurers in their quest to solve the enigma of The Jade Owl.


Edward C. Patterson
Dancaster Creative

Friday, October 3, 2008

The Mystery of Mystery Writing - Whodunit and Turning Idolater


Since my novel Turning Idolater showed up on Amazon.com, I have had readers ask me whether it is more difficult to write a whodunit mystery or a run of the mill novel. My answer to that is easy. If the novel is run of the mill, it’s a cinch to write. I don’t believe I can write such novels. A mystery like Turning Idolater or the forthcoming The Jade Owl (which fits better into the fantasy genre) requires forethought that is more logical. I like to engage the reader by putting clues right under their noses, and then write around them so they miss them completely. (The clues, not their noses). This misdirection is fun for a writer and comes easily to me, but I must admit, to make it all work — to make it so that the reader is completely taken off guard, both mentally and emotionally at the end, takes sleight of hand. I love it when a reader tells me they re-read Bobby’s Trace to track the clues they missed on the first read.


Turning Idolater is an unusual mystery. The underlying glue is that nineteenth century classic, Moby Dick. The sea gushes through the work. The problem with Melville, however, is that his work is ponderous, while his themes transcend the page with simple truths. Therefore, I attempted (and hopefully succeeded) in extracting the themes, overlaying them with a Dickensian story set in modern times — a May-December gay romance between an inspired writer and a precocious Internet stripper. I have looked deep into my own experiences as a gay man and placed emphasis on the ripening relationship between these two men and the perils that befall them, much like the crew of the Pequod captained by an obsessive old thumper determined to destroy the swimming eye of God. Now, that would be a tall tale to write, except it is a murder mystery. The difficulty in any work is not its genre, but the development of the characters. In Turning Idolater’s case, we have four contrapuntal forces — a symphony of souls and, like any opus in sonata allegro form, these elements struggle to resolve on an engaging canvas — in this case, New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod. The mystery of Turning Idolater is that it is a mystery at all. My characters stood by my hand as I sailed this vessel over rough seas — through shoal water and down sewers. While the characters try to resolve their issues, I am resolving the dichotomy of Melville and Dickens, of Pip and Ishmael, of Whales and sea gulls. Yet at the heart of it, lies not a tricky, surprising whodunit (that’s engaging), but the sweet story of a young man at sea with himself and his hopes. The resolution of his inner turmoil is inherent. He must strike the compromise, or in Melville’s words, turn idolater to find his way back to shore. Whodunit? I did. Guilty as charged.


Edward C. Patterson
Turning Idolater
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1440422109 (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001FWZ92Q (Kindle)