We Borrow the Earth, Patrick Jasper Lee (Ravine Press) August 2013.

We Borrow the Earth and Patrick Jasper Lee are being republished! It's been a tough ride for both of us, a journey through thirteen years since its first publication by Thorsons, to its latest publication by Ravine Press. 

The first time round my relationship with this book wasn't exactly a marriage made in heaven, even though I was overjoyed that I was being published. As a fiction writer, it was a challenge to write about my Romani gypsy culture - considering most of my family didn't think it a good idea at all - but it was an exciting prospect to think someone - chiefly the world - was at last taking me seriously as a writer. I didn't particularly want to write this book, but I believed at that time that it would be a step in the right direction, where I might also be accepted as a fiction writer. 

The larger Thorsons and the smaller Ravine are two very different animals, and both live in two completely different dimensions. The first is a hefty giant which throws its weight around like any ogre would, because it is so big it can do just about anything it likes, while the second is a smaller, somewhat transparent otherworldly being, sitting quietly on her rock, waiting for her moment to arrive; she has all the power minus the roar, and she is by far the more acceptable of the two, even though the first will promise you gold.

There is no gold. That's the bottom line. The giant just pretends he has gold and that you are going to get some of it as he dangles it before your eyes. Truth is this giant did very little to help me and my book along, and conversations with other authors soon caused me to believe that larger publishers weren't all they were cracked up to be because they weren't doing a thing to promote new authors. 

When I arranged my American tour to promote We Borrow the Earth, the publisher did absolutely nothing. I was given a Thorsons American contact who said, 'Hallo!' and that was about all she said. Silence and tumbleweed meant I had to do absolutely everything myself, which I didn't mind, of course, but what are these hefty giants of publishers for? Aren't they supposed to do a little more than sit on their huge bums? 

The joke didn't stop there. When I asked for flyers to advertise the tour (which they said I could ask for) I was given some thin cheap bits of blue paper containing a bare minimum of words, crookedly photocopied and very badly designed. I have seen jumble sales advertised far more professionally! 'Unless you're Geoffrey Archer,' my lit agent kept saying to me at the time, 'you can't expect much else!' She was no help either!

After that came the thirteen-year journey, until now, when We Borrow the Earth and Patrick Jasper Lee are being republished. People who got to know Patrick Jasper Lee through knowing We Borrow the Earth are, I hope, going to stick around long enough to see exactly who this author is and what he is really all about, and they will also hopefully see what might have transpired had the hefty giant done its job. Publishing Take Two!

There is a greater sense of freedom now in me, and this is because thirteen years, I suppose, have at least offered me that vital maturing process. I haven't stopped writing in all that time. The cogs have been churning. So there are shelves and shelves - well, almost - of books already written, stacked, and waiting to appear. The fact that I have Asperger's also means that unfortunately when I write, I write like a bit of a machine, so don't expect me to stop at any time soon. The new Patrick Jasper Lee, the one who no longer listens to hefty giants, is here to stay. 

www.patrickjasperlee.com 

www.ravinepress.com

DO ASPIES SEE TOO MUCH RATHER THAN TOO LITTLE?

This was an article I wrote a short while back, which received some attention.

I was wondering if people on the spectrum could see, feel, sense, and get to know more about others and their situations than was commonly accepted. 

I have long had an ability to know exactly where people are coming from, which a geometric mental system I live with - affectionately called my 'signals' - informs me about. 

Technically, I am not supposed to know such things; as an aspie I am supposed to be lacking sufficient communication skills, with trouble in handling conversations. We see things in a straightforward way, steered by 'black and white' intention and thinking, but I, possibly like some others, pick things up from people in a rather computerised way, perhaps even a very animal-like way (animals are not only aspies but are also like computers? Yes, they are! But you'll have to see more in my book to know why I say this). 

To give an example of my geometric state of mind, if someone talks to me about a cup that is on a table to their left and they're looking to their right, it isn't the case that they are really talking about the cup to their left but are really thinking about something that is to their right - to the right of their mind! It is basically nothing to do with the cup. Here, within their mind, something else is going on, which I'm expected to acknowledge; something's taking place in their mind or thoughts occupying them, and my own left/right geometric mind is picking up on it. 

My signals jump about in my mind, from left to right and back again; they also move up and down, from the front of my mind, to the back, side to side, all kinds of directions. It is a complete geometric world of shapes coming alive and transforming themselves into squares, circles and triangles, letting me know where people are coming from. (They also transform into stone, water and mist - but that's another story and too much to go into here).

This system though promptly informs me that someone isn't necessarily talking about the cup on the table to the left; but not only this, they will also inform me about how I am supposed to react, by pretending that we are in fact talking about the cup on the table to the left, because that is what we are expected to be doing! It's confusing. Everyone's confused, but I'm probably more confused than most!

I am fully expected to honour the cryptic messaging such a person is giving me - or the cup - which is difficult in my case: 'this is how you're supposed to react in this particular situation', my signals will be saying as they're trying to put me straight. Without my signals - well, it's like a dog without its nose - I don't know how I would have fared where communication is concerned. I might well have been completely flummoxed as to how the human race behaves and reacts. The human race is a weird species to say the least sometimes! 

I am of the opinion that every spectrum individual - or at least this spectrum individual - sees, feels, senses and gets to know far more of what is going on around them than is generally believed, particularly as we see things literally, and we therefore we see beneath the layers that are communicated every day in the world. It's more a bombardment of too much information that I am subjected to, rather than too little. Thank goodness for my signals.