Thoughts on Physics Reincarnate

Hello, writing and reading friends!

So, for starters, this is the mostly-official cover art for my next novel, pending a formatting tweak or two.  It's nice because Blogspot takes a picture out of each entry to use, so I'm gonna use this because it's easy and almost automatic promotion.

Awesome, isn't it?  It's by the talented Lawrence Shvartsberg, and it's awesome.  Need I say it again?  Awesome!

Anyway, my fans (I love you, all!) probably remember that Physics Incarnate was written as a single book.  It was meant to be sort of a psychological take on the traditional super-hero story.  Emmett Eisenberg wasn't overtly powerful, from the reader's initial perspective.  He was just strange!  Eventually, readers discovered that he was truly "physics incarnate."  He rearranges atoms at will.  His friends, originally portrayed as potentially delusional, are by-and-large like he is.  They have different powers, but similar circumstances.  They all worked at the Connor Point research facility, under the direction of a group called The Consortium Of Trust, and they were all involved in a major disaster there.  One might think that means they saved the world, or something, but that's not quite true. Emmett, in spite of his friends, isn't a hero by any stretch of the imagination.  He doesn't save cities - in fact, he's come closer to destroying them during moments of emotional instability.  He's not evil, he just lost control over his powers, and they nearly killed him.


Expanded Universes

However, as the book became more popular and as people started asking, I realized there was more to tell about the characters of Emmett's world.  I started thinking, in particular, about James Lowery.  James was Emmett's friend who has mastery over his physical senses:  Superhuman hearing, sight, nervous and muscular systems...Whatever!  It's a very cliche power, but it isn't coupled with anything greater.  No super-strength, no regeneration, no flight; just senses.  Yet James uses them to deadly effect.  Moreover, James was the "Head of security" at Connor Point.  His tale felt incomplete.

I toyed with the notion of a prequel, but I've never been a big fan of them.  I like to paint where things go, not where they've been.  We already know Emmett's crew has super-powers, so there's no "twist" to be found there!  Yet I wanted to talk about Jim's past:  He's Irish, he's got a history with intelligence agencies, and he's the group's unelected ringleader.

But, I also came up with ideas for new villains.  I came up with ideas for new characters in general.  Most of all, I realized that there's some cohesive themes to explore:

 - Physics Incarnate, for example, revealed the core of Emmett's past.  It explained what the Consortium Of Trust was.  It introduced us to Erica Hall, and dealt primarily with resolving Emmett's past.
 - Physics Reincarnate, as the sequel is titled, focuses a great deal more on Jim.  Sure, the book will delve into how each member of this super-group was recruited, but it mainly focuses on a new threat.  It's actually set in 2016, by the way, but it's less "future" and more "present."  Survival is essential, because this new threat is more than well enough equipped to challenge Emmett - never mind the threat they are afraid of!
 - Physics Trincarnate will be the third book, and it is about creating a new world.  I haven't written this one, yet, but I know how it goes in principle.  The world will undergo a complete change and become truly divergent from the one we occupy.  Also, it's 99% certain that this is where the series will end.

The thing with these novels is that nothing is quite as it seems.  In book one, Emmett just seems like an odd guy with a very strange, science-minded point of view.  References to atomic lattices are portrayed as simple metaphors - after all, every "solid" object is truly just a collection of atoms held together by bonds!  And a physicist would be keenly aware of this!  But Emmett isn't just seeing objects as a metaphor, he's literally seeing the bonds that hold our world together.

So, there's purpose behind everything, really.  Even, as a hint of a spoiler, the name of one of my favorite characters - Sari.  A "sari" is a robe worn by women in India.  The idea of an exterior covering isn't anything new to this series, as Sari is originally presented as a 30-something-year-old doctor when in reality she's ten years younger than the bulk of the cast and is, moreover, really just a mystical healer.  I know, "just" a mystical healer!  So even on the outset, her identity is a lie.  And will there be more truths to come, more layers of "saris" to peel away from her?  Well, I wouldn't be posing this rhetorical question if there weren't!

So, all in all, get ready!  Physics Reincarnate is coming soon!

Statute of Limitations: Personal Narratives, Coming-Of-Age, and Employment Tales

Quick show of hands, folks?  Who's seen High Fidelity?

How about Kevin Smith's breakthrough comedy, Clerks?  If you have, you've probably figured out that they both feature protagonists who work in a shop of some sort, deal with romantic stress, engage in all sorts of hi-jinx with their colleagues, and tell a now-legendary "coming of age" story about how the main character comes to terms with their aging.

In High Fidelity, John Cusack's character Rob Gordon deals with a pretty miserable break-up.  He cavorts with the employees he's hired to work his record store (dated?  Perhaps!), and with their help he figures out how to set his life on a "better" path.  He frequently talks to the viewer directly, opening the movie with the story of his Top-Five Breakups.  There's the early-on elementary school disaster, the high school disaster, and the college disaster!  Rob follows up with his past loves, trying to figure out what to do with his present despair.  It's a funny tale, and it's got some great music in it to boot.

More renowned with the budding creator, however, is Clerks.  Filmed by nerd legend Kevin Smith on a shoestring budget, at night, at the convenience store he worked at, Clerks is about Dante Hicks and Randall Graves, two miscreants (well, Randall is) who fuck around at work all day, play hockey on the roof, and - oh, yeah - have to come to terms with the fact that they are getting older.  Dante's conflicted between two love interests, and in the end he has to deal with that problem, as well.

You're not here for a compare-and-contrast essay, though.  There's thousands of points of comparison!  There's equally as many differences between the two.  None, though, are more stark than this one fact:  High Fidelity is based on a 1995 novel of the same name by Nick Hornby.  Did I know this when I first watched the movie?  Nope!  In fact, I have yet to read it.

But I have learned something from this contrast, and from both films put together:  Stories change and become distant over time.

Statute of Limitations

Both stories are about young, disaffected men having relationship issues, employment disassociation, and general-old-lives.  They have fun with friends!  The events of each film (debates over music; debates over Star Wars) are pretty familiar to any twenty-something American male.  It's a universal appeal that practically begs people to tell their own twist on it.  And that's a danger to any writer - tropes are attractive because they're easy to fall into, but virtually impossible to pull off.  You need, at the very least, a hook.

You also need to have something you can still relate to!  After fifty or so years, you just won't remember the details.  It becomes hard to remember exactly why your friend Billy was hilarious, and you'll have boatloads of difficulty explaining why the events of May 27th, 1997 were so incredibly awesome!  And explaining it?  To a reader, or a viewer?  Even when you decide to twist the actual events and embellish it, you're still not doing anything more than patching the core of the story up.

Fiction often has a core of truth; writers draw from their lives all the time.  They're stories about fake people, and the circumstances they find themselves in are only somewhat lodged in what can possibly be real.  An autobiography, a personal narrative, a story about your youth?  These contain facts, or at least are supposed to!  But time adds a fog to certain things, and even well-kept journals and friends who retell their experiences will differ from your recollection.

The point, here, is the same as any other time you, as the creator of art, have an inspirational flash.  If you plan to tell a story, tell it while it's rather fresh.  Sure, you need a few weeks' removal from it, to really process what happened.  In fact, sometimes even a couple years could benefit the wordsmith!  But with each re-telling, each re-hashing, each passing minute, the raw impression of the incidents you were so enamored with become fainter and fainter.  It's a balancing act, just like the act of editing and processing a story can fundamentally change it from it's more primal roots, waiting too long can cause your memory of an experience to go beyond crystallization and into fracture.

Sometimes, you just have to act.

Dystopian Lit Guest Post at BookGoodies

Howdy, sports fans!

I open with this line because if you're a sports fan, you're well aware of the Har-Bowl coming up?  Sweet.  I dislike that the Patriots made it that far, but at least they ain't gettin' another Super Bowl!

Moving on.  I recently submitted a guest post to BookGoodies.com, and low-and-behold they posted it, today!  This marks the second one they've posted by me, the first being about NaNoWriMo.  It's about Dystopian literature (and art in general), and it serves as a fairly basic introduction to the genre.  All in all its a fun, quick little read to get you into the spirit of nightmare worlds!  I might write another one for them, one about Hyper-Local Journalism.

Moving on.  Again!  Today is a special day for me because it's the year-and-a-day of Physics Incarnate.  My precious little baby novel is getting so old!  And as much as I'm working on its sequel and other projects, I'm celebrating by having it as a free book on Kindle, today.  So, check it out!

Enjoy yourself, and stay safe!

About Ramble About Writing!

Hi everyone!

This is mostly just a place-holder post. Its also a place to introduce myself, and to maybe talk a bit. For those who don't know me, I'm Jesse Pohlman. Some "vital" facts? I'm about to cross the bridge to twenty-seven years old. I'm from Freeport, New York. My mother passed away six years ago. I've been dating my girlfriend, who I now live with, for nearly two years. I love skiing, fencing, roleplaying (including, yes, World of Warcraft), swimming, and frisbee. My favorite bands include Silversun Pickups, Nirvana, Placebo, and Garbage. I currently work as a one-to-one Teacher Assistant for the Freeport School district, as well as a senior lifeguard for the Freeport Recreation Center. I also, currently, have someone chainsawing a bush apart, right outside of my apartment.

As I am foolish enough to presume by the fact you've gotten this far, I'm also a writer. I don't mean this in a "oh, Jesse writes once in a while" sense. I mean, "Oh, Jesse wants to make a career out of this" one. To that end, you might ask "What have you written?"


What has Jesse Pohlman written?

To begin with, I'm a self-published novelist. I actually put out my first book, an action-packed, science-fiction novel, in 2005. Its called Pillars of the Kingdom, Volume One: The Forming. Its sequel, The Search for the Four, came out in 2009. Its next installment is in progress, clocking in at over 9,000 words; not much.

I also recently completed a novel called "Physics Incarnate." Its currently under consideration by a publisher, and if that one doesn't accept it, then, well...I'll find another.

My novels aren't exactly what I'm famous for, however. Most notably, I write "The Weekly Freeporter," a blog about my hometown. Its how I got into blogging in the first place. Its over a year old and is nearing 100 posts! That's kind of an accomplishment!


Jesse Pohlman - Too Little Time

By now, you've probably gotten the sense that I do a lot of writing. Perhaps even too much. For example; I manage a small website called Liberty Free Media, a journalism/philosophy/etc website. Its got a number of people who have submitted work to it, and I hope it continues to grow.

Finally (or is it...?), I've run a chat room/forum based roleplaying community called Hellestar since I was little. While many folks have come and gone, some people I've played with have been in my life for more than half of it. If I began roughly around the age of 12, well...You do the math. Roleplaying is probably where I started my writing obsession. Its probably swallowed months, if not years of my time.

I say that like its a bad thing!

The bottom line is that I'm a creative person. The bottom line is that this space is going to be used to discuss what that creativity means, and how it is progressing. I hope you'll join me in listening in!