No mention of Valentine’s Day…
Greetings from the Picklesverse,It’s February 13th, so the Ides are upon us already, and it’s time for my monthly message. Here’s what I’ve got for you today:
🗞️ A news roundup
💘 An inbox paradox
🙊 Awkward Questions
🕵️♀️ Ben’s curiosity corner – separating fact from fiction in the ArkTech Territory.
Let’s get stuck in!
🗞️ News roundup
🌊 A big wave
First I’d like to send a big wave to all the new people who’ve joined this month. It’s lovely to have you here.
These monthly emails typically contain updates about my books, a short article aiming to entertain you (and perhaps occasionally succeeding), optional discussion questions, and behind-the-scenes insights into the world of the ArkTech Territory.
I love hearing from you, so if you feel like replying to any part of it, please do. Of course, if you prefer to lurk in the shadows, that’s also perfectly acceptable. (I’m partial to a good lurk myself.)
️⭐️ 100+ on Amazon
I’m delighted to share that Artificial Selection has now received more than a hundred ratings on Amazon, with an average of 4.5 stars. A hundred might not sound like a lot, especially compared to best selling authors who can receive 100,000+ ratings within the first month of their release… but it means a heck of a lot to me, and I’m absolutely over the moon (I’ve been hanging out up there with the moon jumping cow of legend – she says hi). Thanks so much for all your support. 💕
It actually would’ve been an average of 4.6, but this month, I also received my first ever one-star rating. 😱 So, I did what authors are advised to do in this situation and looked up some of my favourite books. All of them have one-star ratings. Catch-22 has them. Project Hail Mary has them. Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels have them. And, inexplicably, even Sir Terry Pratchett’s books have them. So, while it’s not the nicest feeling, I know it goes with the territory.
⏳ A new milestone for Time Hack
As you may already know, I’ve been revising Time Hack (the award-winning sequel to Artificial Selection). The editing’s going really well, but I’ve just reached a new stage, which makes me feel especially excited about how it’s all coming together.
For context, I’m not keen on sharing early drafts with readers because I think it’s like offering someone a slice of an undercooked cake. “Hey, would you like a spoonful of this unappetising goop I made?” However, there comes a moment in the drafting process when I realise the words on the page have turned golden brown (how long can I legitimately extend this metaphor?). This moment is what I refer to as “the fifth draft.”
You may remember that Ben likes Charlotte to answer his Awkward Questions using the Five Whys Protocol (more on this later), which doesn’t literally involve asking why five times. In a similar way, I think of my novel writing process as involving ten drafts. It’s not literally ten (it’s got to be more…), but it helps me to mentally characterise the quality and readiness of each chapter in the book.
At “fifth draft,” I consider the work suitable for sharing with other people. There are formatting issues and probably a few typos, but otherwise it reads like an actual book. I’m pleased to say that the first ten chapters of Time Hack are now at this stage. And not only that… they’ve been read by my “alpha reader” (aka the first non-me human who sees the text, aka my partner, David.)
I was nervous. David is Spanish, which means he doesn’t suffer from the British tendency to be over-polite or indirect. I know that if he doesn’t like it, he’s going to tell me. Which means I was both elated and hugely relieved earlier this month when he read the chapters and loved them! 😅 Phew!
I’m now working hard on getting the rest of the book up to the same standard of polish. I’ll ask David to read the whole thing, and then it’ll go to my editor.
💘 An inbox paradox
Warning: this section constitutes a frivolous aside. If you have no truck with frivolity, please skip ahead.
Ben informs me that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. As an author, I feel some responsibility to keep an eye on what’s trending in the world of books (and then I go forth and ignore this information completely when it comes to my own work 🙃). It hasn’t escaped my attention that “romantasy” novels are the current Big Thing (i.e. romance + fantasy), and that Rebecca Yarros’s Onyx Storm just became the fastest-selling adult novel of the past twenty years. Earlier, when I mentioned authors who get 100,000+ ratings in their first month, she’s one of them. So even though Valentine’s Day isn’t something we particularly celebrate, I did consider whether it might qualify for a brief mention in this month’s email.
But then I decided it didn’t. I simply can’t summon the enthusiasm to say anything of consequence about Valentine’s Day. Even Ben’s fun facts about its potential origins in the Roman celebration of Lupercalia weren’t enough to change my mind.
Unfortunately, by both mentioning it and deciding not to mention it, I’ve now delivered a paradox into your inbox. If the resulting damage to the fabric of the universe results in the deletion of all your emails, I can only apologise.
🙊 Awkward Questions
For the last couple of months, I’ve shared discussion questions about the world of my books. This month, I thought I’d ask you a different type of awkward question:
Q: What genre(s) is Artificial Selection?
Now, obviously on the front of the book it says it’s “a near-future science fiction mystery,” so that’s a legitimate answer. But I’ve had some interesting conversations with readers about their take on the book’s genre.
One said: “To me, it was a future history.” I rather liked that. Others have said “it effortlessly blends genres,” or “it was a bit noir and a bit Terry Pratchett,” or it was “part dystopian thriller and part police procedural,” or indeed, “one of the great strengths of this book is that you never quite know if you’re reading about a utopia or a dystopia.”
I’m deeply aware of what my influences were when writing the book, but I’d be interested to hear what your impressions were about the genre or genres at play. As ever, there’s no right or wrong answer…
(Unless you say it was a space opera, or a paranormal romance, or a non-fiction treatise on the history of the lightbulb… so I guess there are some wrong answers. Let me try that again…)
There’s no wrong answer… as long as the answer is supported by the text.
(OK, that seems more true.)
Feel free to reply to this email if you’d like to tell me what you think. And if you have any awkward questions for me, ask away.
🕵️♀️ Ben’s curiosity corner
It’s time for another fun fact about which parts of the ArkTech Territory are based in reality and which are entirely fictional. I’m making this section spoiler-free, for anyone who’s still reading.
We’ve already covered:
- Automated buildings (FACT)
- Mabel’s mug (FACT)
- The HyperBullet network (FICTION, inspired by FACT)
- Seagulls stealing potato-based snacks (FACT)
- SmartSkin (FICTION)
Today’s topic is:
- The Five Whys Protocol
If you have a request for what I cover in future emails, just let me know.
🤔 The Five Whys – FACT
(The section that follows is dedicated to regular Picklesverse reader The Cheeky Llama (his Underbelly alias) because of his self-professed regard for cattle grids.)
As I mentioned earlier, Ben likes Charlotte to use the Five Whys Protocol as a means of diagnosing the root cause of people’s behaviour when answering his Awkward Questions. You may (or may not) be surprised to hear that this is a real thing.
I first encountered the Five Whys Protocol some years ago when I was the “lucky recipient” of some corporate training in Lean Six Sigma. (Yes, that’s also a real thing. If you think the names ArkTech’s marketing team comes up with are silly, they have nothing on real life. I won’t explain what Lean Six Sigma is because we’d be here all day and I don’t think you’d thank me for it. If you happen to be a Lean Six Sigma practitioner, please know that while I see the merits of the approach in the right situations, I may never get over the name.)
The tutor wanted to explain why finding root causes was important, so he gave an example of an undiagnosed problem. I’m not sure if the story that follows is entirely true, but this is what he told us.
A small rural town was having a recurring issue. Their vegetables and front gardens were being raided by the greatest pest of all: sheep.
It wasn’t clear how this was happening. The sheep roamed in fields beyond the town. Nobody ever saw them come in or leave, and they refused to crack under interrogation. There were fences all around the town, but none of the fences were broken and they were too tall for the sheep to jump over. There were cattle grids at the entrance and exit which should’ve kept the sheep at bay.
It was a mystery. Eventually, when the locals were debating whether to build bigger fences, pack up and leave the accursed place, or make a hearty mutton stew and be done with it, they called a Professional. This Professional, who had a “black belt” in Lean Six Sigma (I promise I’m not making up these terms!) encouraged them to get to the root cause of the problem and put up a camera. That’s when they discovered what was happening: the sheep had learned to get over the cattle grids by kneeling down and rolling across, using the protective padding of their wool.
Knowing this allowed the villagers to put the right measures in place to protect their plants without wasting money on the wrong solution, or harming any sheep. The moral of the story was to diagnose the true cause of a problem in order to fix it.
I guess the five whys in this case might have been as follows:Our plants are getting eaten! Why? Because the sheep are running amok. Why? Because the gardens are more delicious than grass, I guess. No, I mean why are they able to run amok? Because <checks camera> they’re ninjas. Um… Why? We suspect genetic engineering. Perhaps these sheep were clones. Is this the dawn of Dolly 2.0? Hmm. Then, what’s the solution? Find and destroy the Dr Frankenstein wannabe who’s producing this demonic herd! Grab your pitchfork, Derek!
Right… on that note, that’s all from me this month. I hope all’s well in your own personal universes.
Walk in the sun,
Marianne
