The Ides of December 2025
Greetings Picklesversians!
It’s the 13th of December, so the Ides are upon us, and it’s time for my monthly message. I hope you’ve been decking the halls with clumps of embroidered flowers because it’s only twelve days until Walker Day! 🧡🩶 Here’s what I’ve got for you today:
👩💻 Behind the scenes
🐓 Recommendations
🤖 A December Benism
Let’s dive in! 🌊
👩💻 Behind the scenes
I’ve been working on Book 3 of the ArkTech series, and it’s great fun to be starting a new adventure with these characters. I’m never sure how much to say about my actual writing process because I don’t want to bore you to tears, but Ben suggested I share a few fun facts about it – and who am I to argue?
1. Music. A lot of people concentrate better in a quiet environment, but I often find silence distracting (perhaps because it means my thoughts are louder – who knows?). This means I almost always listen to music while I’m writing. It helps to switch my brain from its analytical setting to its creative setting.
(Writing courses often advise us to “write drunk and edit sober”* and that matches my experience of how it works. Annoyingly, most complex plotting questions get solved when I stop thinking about them. [I remember grappling with a particular quandary all morning and had to give up… then the answer magically popped into my mind when I was walking to the hairdresser {so I guess, logically speaking, the next time I get stuck, I should book another trim…}])
December is the time of year when Spotify and Amazon Music send out their summaries of everything we’ve listened to during the year. For 2025, my top artist was apparently Glass Animals, an indie rock band from Oxford. If you like the Red Hot Chili Peppers (and who doesn’t?), I’d recommend the Glass Animals track called How I Learned to Love the Bomb as I find the style reminiscent. (And if you can tell me which 1964 Stanley Kubrick movie’s subtitle this song’s name is referring to, Ben will send you a hilarious joke to reward your fun-fact-related prowess.)
2. Location. Contrary to common depictions in popular culture, authors don’t always write in cute little cafes (where a mocha will set you back six quid), or at large oak desks overlooking private lakes. (If you’d like to hear an author’s reflections on the best places to write, check out On Writing by Stephen King. [Don’t worry – it’s not scary…])
I usually write at home. I have a desk in The Yellow Room upstairs which is The Official Writing Place. But I only write there when David’s at work and when it’s cold outside. If it’s sunny and warm, my favourite spot is in the garden. If David’s at home, I use the sofa so we can keep each other company (even if I’ve adopted a glassy-eyed stare because my mind has been transported to the 22nd century… I think he’s used to it by now). I’ve heard of people writing novels on their mobile phone in the small gaps throughout their day, but I haven’t reached that level of Writing Fu yet.
3. Equipment. When I’m writing the actual words, I do that on my laptop. When I’m plotting (or scheming) or thinking something through, I write by hand. A few years ago, my house was dangerously overflowing with so many notebooks that they threatened to topple over and crush me, so I bought a Remarkable 2 paper tablet. If you are a Maker of Lists, or generally do a lot of writing by hand, I highly recommend it. It’s the second best thing I’ve ever bought.
DISCLAIMER: I also take my Remarkable to my day job, which means the first five minutes of any meeting with someone new are taken up with them asking “Ooo! What’s that?!” and me letting them have a go. You’ve been warned.
*When it comes to “write drunk, edit sober,” this is typically intended as a metaphor meaning “write without inhibitions, edit with your analytical mind.” The quote is often mistakenly attributed to Ernest Hemingway, who took the advice a little too literally, I think it’s fair to say. David and I used to live in Logroño (the capital of La Rioja, Spain, where the wine comes from). I remember visiting my first bodega and being impressed that their claim to fame was that Ernest Hemingway had visited. They had photos to prove it. I soon became less impressed when I learned all the other wineries in the region could also make the same claim.**
**And if you’re wondering whyI was visiting quite so many bodegas, it’s because I find barrel-based aging schystems hugely faschinating… hic!
🐓 Recommendations
David and I have continued our current phase of watching documentaries and I have a couple to recommend you this month.
🐔 Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds is an amusing documentary about meteors directed by Werner Herzog. It contains lots of fun facts about meteors and the people who love them, including the story of a retired jazz musician, Jon Larsen, who invented a new branch of science by collecting and magnifying micrometeorites in Norway. (This involves him spending his free time going up onto a very large roof and fishing around in puddles with a magnet. Now that’s commitment.)In the same documentary, I was introduced to the notion of geometric “Penrose” chickens. I had to take a picture of this…
There’s a type of geometric pattern with special properties which took a long time to discover (or rediscover… it actually existed already on a medieval monument in Iran). Sir Roger Penrose, mathematician and physicist, is famed for his discovery of the pattern. Then, someone (I’m not entirely sure who) decided it was very important to render that pattern in chickens, as illustrated above.It reminds me of being at primary school where they had boxes of multicoloured plastic bears that were supposed to be used for counting. I’m imagining these geometric chicken jigsaws are used in a similar way with first year mathematics students at university. (And I’ll be very disappointed if that turns out not to be the case.)
🦁 We also watched the new David Attenborough documentary, Kingdom, which is whimsically framed as a Game of Thrones style drama (even down to the intro sequence and theme music). It follows four rival animal families over a five-year period: lions, leopards, hyenas, and wild dogs. It’s somewhat traumatising in places, but the behaviour of the wild dogs in episode four was incredibly moving, and I’d say it’s worth watching just for that (as long as you don’t mind spontaneously bursting into tears afterwards for about a day and a half).
📚 I also wanted to mention a book that was recommended to me last month as an example of “thrutopia” (thanks, Rowan!). Here’s the opening line from the blurb for Cascade by Rachel A Rosin, a Canadian author – “In the wake of a worsening climate crisis, magic runs rampant and demons roam across the Canadian prairies.” I haven’t read it yet, but it sounds intriguing so I thought I’d pass it on in case any of you want to check it out.
🤖 A December Benism
Ben’s November Benism went down so well last month that you’ve encouraged him to do the same in December. (You only have yourselves to blame.) Over to you, Ben…December is a noteworthy month among Homo sapiens, featuring several important days of celebration.
🌱 The 5th of December is, of course, World Soil Day, which is dedicated to remembering the central importance of healthy soil and the mycelial networks therein. It is important to note that the mycelial networks found in soil cannot be used to traverse parallel universes (not even when in possession of the Spore Drive from the USS Discovery).
🎶 December 9th is World Techno Day, during which humans are encouraged to play this much-loved style of electronic music, which originated in Detroit in the 1980s. For best results, those celebrating the holiday should play the music at full volume on public transport to demonstrate their observance to others, thereby gaining social status.
🐴 And today, December 13th, is the National Day of the Horse in the United States of America. Established in 2004, this holiday recognises the valuable contribution made by horses to the history and economy of the US. It can be celebrated by spending time with your noble steed, visiting a local equestrian museum, or even riding your local fairground carousel. Right… Thanks, Ben… That’s all from me this month. I hope all’s well in your own personal universes.
Wishing all of you a wonderful Walker Day when it arrives!
Walk in the sun,
Marianne