ATA-12 MonicaChase

This is Author to Author, and I'm Tim Trott. This channel is about authors for authors. As a writer, I like to discover how other authors find their inspiration and motivation. Monica Chase writes fearless fiction where science, power, and consequences collide. Her stories are set at just moments into our future where technology moves too fast for rules and the wrong people are in control. Fans compare her writing to Michael Crichton Blake Crouch. She digs into cutting-edge technology, genetic engineering, and rogue AI, and as such, she reveals the flaws in the very systems we're supposed to rely on. Think high-stakes conspiracies, unstoppable characters, and decisions that change everything. In a moment, we'll meet our guest author. Author to Author is supported by Cybershoot.com, the right host for your author website. Welcome to Author to Author. Monica Chase, introduce us to The Helix Chronicles.

Thank you, Tim. So The Helix Chronicles is a speculative fiction series, and it is about when humanity is confronted with technology that actually outpaces our morals and our ethics and our laws, and who is really in control. And the main question and the crux of the series is really about what are we willing to sacrifice for advancement. In a world that is rapidly progressing with technology, we often fail to stop and ask where the line is, who it hurts, who it impacts, and who benefits. And I wanted to make an examination of those issues and to do it through an entertaining lens of speculative fiction. I see The Helix Chronicles as a commentary on issues that we are confronted with every day. Technology, social media, gene editing, all of these things that we are rapidly pursuing But are we stopping and asking the right questions along the way?

Can't ask for a more topical or timely commentary. You begin with Broken Code. That's your first book in the series. Tell me about that.

So Broken Code is actually a love letter to my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. And it has a bit of a Southern noir flavor. The characters are flawed, gritty, and also very loving, which really encapsulates the soul of my hometown. And I thought, what better place to set such a story where we are talking about genetic editing used to potentially shape and mold behavior in society. To me, Broken Code is an examination of the ever-increasing stratifications in society, where we have billionaires and corporations that are doing things without ever checking to see if those things benefit all of us. And it seems to be a speed run to see who can gain the most control and the most money. And I felt like putting a lens on that in the form of the plot in Broken Code was a great way to examine that and also provide a very entertaining ride for the reader. In fact, I wrote the book that I wanted to read, and that is really how Broken Code came to be. I consider that book to be one inch from reality, and reality is barreling at us faster than we can, than we can see.

But you didn't stop there. You went on to a second in the series. Tell us about Echoes of Control.

Absolutely. So if Broken Code was about exploring and uncovering the conspiracy to edit genes in unwilling and unwitting subjects, Echoes of Control explores the fallout and digs deeper into the conspiracy. And again, if it were a kaleidoscope, it's turning the kaleidoscope another quarter of a turn and seeing that while the same elements are there, the picture has changed. The The players are bigger, the conspiracy is global, and the power players have more in mind than just editing DNA to make a compliant society. So I wanted to not only create a satisfying sequel to Broken Code, but to also provoke thought and questions about what are we really handing over in terms of our autonomy and our rights and our freedoms. And do we really trust those that are in power?

Obviously, you've got a good start on a series. So where do we go from there?

So where we go from here is the third and final book in the Helix Chronicles. The working title is Terminal Order. And without spoiling too much from Echoes of Control, what you will see in Terminal Order is the culmination of everything going back to the gene editing in Broken Code, the larger conspiracy in Echoes of Control actually enacted and taken to the extreme where we have a dystopian world that literally only took a whisper to make happen. And I feel like it's very timely. I feel like as a society, we crave technology and we crave the next newest improvement. And I don't know if we critically examine and stop and ask, what is the cost of this? And, you know, when social media really became a thing, and it's free, we started to realize, I'm the product, you know. So that was something I wanted to explore, how we have all of this technology, and we have AI, which is very topical and very emergent and dominating headlines in our society. But what happens if that's turned on its head? What happens if that is weaponized? What happens if that is used against us? And does it become something that is too late to reel back? And if it is, what changes does that mean for our society? And how do we move forward with that? Because ultimately, the question that I want to confront in the finale is humanity can be looked at as not only the virus but also the cure. So you'll have to read Terminal Order to find out how I answer that question.

My research department, speaking of AI, says, as a Gen X latchkey kid who transitioned from corporate America to full-time writing, how have your personal experiences influenced the schemes or the themes of power, rebellion, and family bonds in your series?

Oh, that's a big one. Well, first of all, as that Gen X kid, you know, in school we had drills where we put our heads in our desk, and we were constantly bombarded in society at that time in the late '70s, early '80s with The Russians were our enemies. Nuclear war could be imminent at any moment. And there was just this existential dread as a Gen X kid. But we were also left alone. So we tend to be very resilient, but also very jaded. So that obviously colored very much how I perceive the world and how I question what is going on in the world with all of this rapid change with technology.

I'm older than you. We hid under the desk in my day. Your writing has been compared to genre giants like Michael Crichton, John Grisham for its suspense and depth. How do you balance intense scientific concepts with accessible high-stakes storytelling to keep your readers hooked? Another AI-generated question.

I love it. Well, you know, I, as a writer, and I'm speaking to the authors and the writers that may be watching this, I use what's called a layman's echo in my writing. So if I describe a dense scientific process, I always make sure that I have characters that will restate or rephrase it in such a way that it's accessible for even the casual reader who's not familiar with AI or CRISPR and genetic editing, just so they can track. And again, that's the type of book that I love to read. No one wants to read a white paper for entertainment. So I do try to always reframe the dense scientific topics into digestible layman's terms, but also use them for propelling the plot and making sure that the reader is tracking and that they feel a little in on the story and that they feel like this is prestige writing and they get it and they can even maybe see two moves ahead and they're eager to turn the page.

The Helix Chronicles, I was interested to note, you basically started the series about a year ago, but you obviously are not a brand new writer, at least from, from, from impression. So how, how long have you been writing seriously?

Seriously, I have been writing for my entire life. And actually, in my corporate persona, you know, before I actually decided to retire early and refocus my life, anytime something needed to be written and needed to be compelling and persuasive and convincing and evoke emotion, I was the one whose shoulder was tapped. In my career. So in my first book, in the back of the book, I talk about how I've been masquerading as a writer, you know, my entire life. I've just been wearing different hats. But to answer your question, because as writers, we do like to ramble. Seriously, I've been writing for about 6 years. And I have been you know, messing around with short stories and novellas and things like that. And the story and the characters in The Helix Chronicles have been lurking in the back of my mind forever. And I'm obviously very influenced by John Grisham, another hometown boy whose books line my bookshelves. So he was someone that I definitely looked up to and aspired to be like in my writing career. And it wasn't until CRISPR and AI started making headlines that I realized that I could combine my passion for writing like John Grisham. And yes, I have the audacity to say that. I don't think I'm there yet. Someday, maybe. But when I saw CRISPR and AI and all of these technologies that I've been so drawn to, it just seemed like a marriage made in heaven.

Nothing wrong with standing in the shadow of giants. It elevates you. My next question on my list is published or self-published and why. But you're with Thoughtcraft Publishing. How did that come about?

Yes, so when I started working with mentors in the industry and dipping my toe into the craft of writing, and I look at it this way, I'm going to take a little detour. I believe that most writers have an inborn talent, but as far as executing your craft, I think you start out as a beginner. I like to use the analogy that Michael Jordan has an inborn talent, but he honed that talent through hours and hours and hours on the court and practice. So I do think you need to be very humble and hone what you think is your natural talent for writing. And I did that by finding Paper Raven Books. And they helped me immensely with the book coaching and how to structure and format a manuscript as far as making a compelling story. And I think anyone that wants to approach writing needs to do that. And in the course of doing all of those things, I realized I could expend all of that energy make it the most perfect, beautiful manuscript possible, and it would probably end up in someone's delete bin of their email with a traditional publisher. So I definitely explored the possibility of self-publishing and decided that that was the most compelling option for myself, and I founded my company, ThoughtCraft Publishing. So I could become an independent publisher. And I have no regrets. I would do it all over again.

When you're not crafting your near-future nightmares, uh, what else are you doing? Are you binge-watching thought-provoking TV or inventing backstories for strangers? What's your methodology? What's your secret?

My secret formula is that Everything in life is fair game. That is from the obnoxious man in front of you at Starbucks who's rude to the barista to the hurried wife in the grocery store who's having trouble getting her kids in the car. It's all fodder for my fiction and My brain never turns off. In fact, we have a joke in my family that, "Oh gosh, she's probably going to put that in a book." So I think I finally found the one thing that I'm meant to do in this world because it doesn't feel like work. It doesn't feel like a chore. It feels like me channeling the talent that I think I was born with, and everything around me is a possibility for a story.

I admire your concentration or your focus, but have you ever decided to write outside your genre of science fiction, and do you plan to do that?

Absolutely. I really, really want to delve into psychological thrillers, I think how the human mind works and how personalities form and how we have, you know, people that are on every end of the spectrum. We've got people that have personality disorders. And what do they do with that? Do they become politicians? Do they become billionaires? What kind of control do they effect on the world. So yes, I have some ideas. I definitely want to branch out into psychological thrillers at some point, and beyond that, I'm not sure. I definitely am— I, I would consider myself very prolific. I'm able to really, really focus and get a lot of words on the page. It doesn't mean they're all good words, but it definitely is a good starting point. So yeah, psychological thrillers are next on my list.

Now we got to get down to the nitty-gritty. What is your— your theme is artificial intelligence and warning us about the, the, the, the, the dangers of it and things like that. But when it really comes down to it, what is your opinion of artificial intelligence? Do you use AI as a tool? Do you see it as a threat to writers? Do you see it What do you see in the future of AI and its evolution?

Wow, that is an entire episode in and of itself, Tim. So I'm going to give you the short answer. I think AI will be the most awesome and terrifying and wonderful and terrible technology that humanity has ever created. And this goes back to the crux of what the Helix Chronicles is all about. Who's really sitting at the controls? And what are we using it for? And what decisions as, as a species, as humans, are we ceding to AI? And if you've ever talked to a chatbot for customer service, I'm sure you felt the disorienting feeling of, "I just want a human being to pick up the phone and answer the question." So I think as a society, we have to ask ourselves that. What does it give us in terms of advancing our species? Because honestly, I do use AI for my research. I do not use it for my writing. That is a huge hot button. It's very controversial. You know, AI in and of itself is very controversial. You have the argument about how much resources and pollution that it creates physically, but also the fact that it's been trained on creative works. Does that feel like copyright infringement or stealing. I don't think our court system has even caught up to that yet. And a prime example of that is one of the sites I use for stock images says that they do not accept any AI-created images, but when you scroll down, you're given the option to buy their AI package to enhance the images. So there seems to be a little bit of a disconnect in the message there, and I think that that is indicative of the question that we're faced with as a society is, what are we using this tool for? And to be even cruder, it feels like giving your gorilla a bazooka. Where is he gonna point it and who's gonna get hurt? So yeah, these are the things that keep me up at night.

The story of technology never proceeds as we expect it, because I remember a time when they said computers are going to eliminate the need for printers. That didn't go that direction at all, because where is all the printing paper being used up for? Things that we're printing out from, from online. How do you market your book? Goodreads, BookFunnel, advanced readers copies, social media. How do you advertise and what is your most successful strategy?

That's a great question. I think as an indie author, especially as a debut author with no footprint, you have to explore all of those options. I do use BookFunnel. I've used BookBub. I've used promotions. In this regard, Paper Raven Books has been a wonderful partner. They do all of my promotions for the series and assist me with the marketing and the publishing. Of course, at the end of the day, I am completely autonomous. I do own all of my accounts and all of my promotions. But they're my creative and collaborative partner. And I, I do think that you have to be careful as an indie author. There's a lot of fly-by-night organizations out there that just want your money with no proven benefit to promoting with them. So I do think you need to stick with the tried and true: Goodreads, BookFunnel, BookBub. Things like that, even going as far as using social media ads, Amazon ads, and certain book promotion organizations that you can run book promos with. Those have been the key for me. And also what I think gets, um, probably overlooked is cultivating your audience and building a newsletter and getting those people who are true fans and want to hear about what's going on in your writing and what's, you know, what's the next book, what's coming out, that is gold. You own that newsletter. You own the message that you're sending out to them, and it's, it's direct one-to-one. It's in their email, and it's really hard to build those list and build a newsletter. And I admit that is something that I'm still challenged with in terms of making it a glowing success. I obviously do not have a big publisher house behind me. It is just little old me over here at ThoughtCraft. But I believe in the work. I believe in my message. I believe that these subjects that I write about in my book are thought-provoking and timely and hopefully resonate with people. Because, you know, as an author, I want people to think. The type of books that I write, I want people to read that last page, close the book, stare off into space for a minute, and maybe take a walk around the block. And then maybe go Google some of the things that were in the book and get a little more engaged in the world.

Can I safely assume that you buy your own ISBNs?

I do. I do. I use Bowker and I buy them in bulk because they give you the most bang for your buck. So yes, highly recommend that you do that.

Do you hire an editor, cover designer? How much of that can you do in-house?

Yes, so actually, uh, this is one area where I don't let my hubris take over. I think especially getting into the world of book publishing and listening to the experts at Paper Raven You have to have a professional cover. It is the curb appeal for your book on Amazon. A wonderful book will fail if the COVID is not appealing and not appropriate for your genre. So that has to be nailed. That is not somewhere you cut corners. I do use 99designs and have had a wonderful experience using them. And I have cohesion over the series with the 3 covers. And as far as editing, that is another area where you buy once, cry once. It is expensive, but a poorly edited book is the kiss of death, in my opinion. I think there are very few books on the market where readers will forgive a poorly edited manuscript. That is something you absolutely have to nail. So I do work with a professional editor, someone that is in the Paper Raven ecosphere, and he happens to also be a fan of my genre and did an awesome job editing my books. And I cannot recommend that highly enough. So yes, if you're thinking of doing this endeavor on your own, You have to have a professional cover and professional editing.

I think the biggest shock to new writers is that when they find out that writing and completing the book is only a half to a third of the project, and then, then the real work begins and the expense begins.

Yes, absolutely.

How many dimensions do you work in? Do you publish a paperback, hardcover, ebooks, audio? How far do Does your work lend itself to audio, and, or, or the— is it difficult to climb that ladder?

Well, for me, it's difficult to climb that ladder financially at this point, um, because I do not want to put out an, uh, Audible book or an audiobook until I can afford to do it the right way. I write in limited third point of view. So there's multiple points of view in all of the books, and with the different characters, you've got people from the South, we've got European people. So nailing their voice, nailing those accents, that is obviously not something I would feel comfortable doing in my garage. So I do not have Audible books at this time. It is a dream of mine that eventually I will go back and have those books professionally done with voiceover. At the moment, I do offer ebook, paperback, and hardback. And oddly enough, I did get a lot of requests for hardback, and I almost discounted doing the books in that format until several people said, I— since you're doing a series and it's science fiction, you really need to do it in hardback. People love getting the whole series in hardback as a keepsake. So I did do that, and I have sold quite a bit, so I'm happy that I did that.

I think a lot of authors feel like the high cost of a hardcover is a deterrent, but you're really filling— fulfilling the needs of a dedicated audience because you know you've got a dedicated readership when, when they want the hardcover version. So what are the tools of your trade?

Absolutely. So this is what my tech stack looks like. I do— I have used Scrivener and found it a little overwhelming. I tend to fall into the trap of organizational inertia. So what I found to actually push myself forward in getting the first manuscript done for Broken Code was to just move to Word. So I use Word. I also give it a pass through ProWritingAid and sometimes Grammarly. I do find that those two applications conflict with each other, so you can't get too lost in the weeds on that. I also, I've played around with AI in terms of, you know, crafting passages and have found that it is comically not up to my standard. So I think it's a good tool for certain genres and idea generation. And brainstorming and ideation. It's ironic, someone that writes about technology and AI, I do use it for the backend of my business because it is such a time saver. I do think from a creative perspective, especially with the controversies around AI and the narrative that seems to be very dominant right now. I, I don't want any of my books to be AI-generated, and they're not. Um, so yeah, it's interesting that you asked that question. I, I had a thought the other day about that, and I think what bothers people about AI and the training on creative works, it's not so much the training on creative works of others. I think it's the speed. And what I mean by that is, if I wanted to go down to the public library and read every fiction book that was remotely related to the topics that I write about, it would take me forever. But No one would shame me for doing that. So I think AI and the resistance that we're seeing to AI is really more about the speed that it's happening and the fact that it's unearned. Someone can put in a prompt in an AI and generate a 20,000-word outline for a full-fledged novel in just a matter of moments. And I think that's disorienting and disturbing. And I feel that way too. I think at the end of the day, not to get too philosophical, but the things that we write about and the things that we ultimately end up publishing as books, they come from the heart. And those things that come from the heart they take time and they can't just be put into an AI engine and spat out.

My experience has been the writing that is generated by AI, for, for a large amount, I described as being a 10-year-old on speed reading an encyclopedia.

I think that is a perfect way to describe what you see in AI. And if you think about it, I look at AI as a very, very advanced autocomplete. So if you've ever typed an email and Gmail wants to finish the sentence for you, that's essentially what AI is doing. Or to think of it another way, it's like a Magic 8 Ball, that thing we all played with when we were kids. So you're priming it to tell you the answer or you're putting the answer onto whatever it gives you and you're putting the meaning onto it. So it's really just math. When you peel back the COVID of how AI really works, it all boils down to math. So it's trained on data and it's giving you the perception that it's intelligent. And it's speaking to you and it's curated and it's personal. But at the end of the day, it's just ones and zeros.

I just feel like it's a friend who remembers things better than I do.

Exactly. And again, to talk about the good part of AI, you know, I do use it on the back end of my business. It has been a time saver in terms of, you know, I need a spreadsheet to track expenses. I need a spreadsheet to track, you know, how this last launch went and profitability and where the money went and the return on investment. So I think in that regard, it is very much a great tool. And, you know, if you think about it, Computers didn't put accountants out of business. Computers didn't put architects out of business. I think where we're going with AI is that we will see a settling, if you will. The technology will be used in concert with humans that are overseeing and managing the creative process or the work. That AI is directed to do. And I think some of the lower skill positions, like I mentioned earlier, basic customer service, things like that, AI will probably dominate. But at the end of the day, I think we have to learn to live with technology and not be afraid of it. And again, that kind of goes back to one of the key themes of the Helix Chronicles.

Have you ever heard the term dissociative identity disorder?

Absolutely, yes.

How does that apply to using a pen name, if we can uncover something here?

Absolutely. So yes, Monica Chase is a pen name. She is a persona that I do fully embrace, and Honestly, I have a double-barrel last name that is a little clunky, and I am constantly spelling it, pronouncing it, and have gotten to the point in my real life where I am just telling people, just forget it, and giving them just part of my name that's simple. So when I decided to actually make writing a commercial endeavor, I decided to go with a pen name. And I actually love it. I love wearing the Monica hat. And when I take it off at the end of the day, when Monica's done answering all of these heady questions about, um, AI controlling our lives and billionaires wanting to mess with our DNA, it feels really good to kind of leave Monica at the desk.

Where can people find you online?

You can find me online at monicachase.com. And if you want a cute story about the pen name, I can give you one.

Sure, why not? Let's do it.

So as I was researching a great pen name, I actually discovered this article that talked about when you're formulating a pen name, the last name should be very action-oriented depending on what you write about. So obviously writing in my genre, Chase seemed to be very action-oriented, and that your first name should be the popular baby name or a popular baby name from the generation that your audience is from. So Monica was a popular baby name in the generation that I target, and it's supposed to resonate with your readers. So that's how Monica Chase was born. There's— and I've grown to love her. She is, she is definitely, like you said earlier, uh, she's definitely another personality in, in me and in our household.

A productive use of dissociative identity disorder. Thank you so much for being with us, Monica Chase. Thank you for joining us for Author to Author. Please share this video with your friends on social media. Remember to click the like and subscribe buttons. Click the bell so you'll be reminded when it's time for the next chapter of Author to Author.