Five Questions With: Ty Patterson

Hello Readers,

I have an interview with Ty Patterson, author of The Warrior. Enjoy!

1. Tell me about yourself and how you first become interested in writing.

I have had a varied career but have primarily been in sales for a long time. I have sold tea, exotic leather goods, automotive lubricants, engineering goods... you get the picture! I have also always been writing, either short fictional pieces for magazines in an earlier life time to advertising copy-writing in another. In December 2011 my wife challenged me to come out of my comfort zone and write fiction in a genre that I liked best and The Warrior was born. I am still selling ,  selling my stories that will hopefully live on in the memories and imaginations of my readers for a long time.

2. How did you come up with the idea for this novel (and eventual series)?

I have several friends in the Armed Forces and I have always found it interesting that society expects so much from such people, rewards them so little and yet they go about their jobs without complaint.

It was this 'giving' trait that I based Zeb Carter on;  a person who went readily to help when others shied away, without expecting anything in return. The more I created Zeb and the other characters, the more I liked them and the idea of creating a series around these characters then came naturally.

3. I noticed that your novel included elements from other cultures, and in your bio, you state that you have lived in several different countries. Which of these places was your favorite?

At one level, people are all the same wherever they are. They have the same basic drivers, same motivations and the structures of family,society, state, are more or less the same.

At another level, the level that interests me, people in different countries and cultures are wildly different, develop at different rates, because they are shaped by history, by circumstances, and the impact of time and nature.

So India is the home of Kalari Payattu (Zeb is a practitioner), one of the oldest martial arts in the world and yet it is hardly known to the wider world and remains confined to a select few proponents. The whys and hows of such developments interest me. The developing countries of the subcontinent, especially India,  have so many such whys and hows that it probably is my favorite region. But then I am a migrant, so if you ask me this question in five years time, my answer could be different.

4. What's next in the Zeb series?

Next is a book featuring Broker in a more central role. I have an initial plot in mind and have started banging the keyboard. I hope to get this book out by spring. 

5. Besides the Zeb series, do you have any other projects coming up?

India has one of the most fascinating epics ever written in my opinion, The Mahabharata. This epic is, at its simplest, about a family feud. However, the scale of the epic is enormous, and more importantly, the teachings in the epic have a message for everyone.

I have been thinking of writing this epic but in a very Zeb Carterish way . However this is some way off, since I want to add a few more books to The Warrior series.