Chasing Thoughts

Welcome to (Backstory - Monica's Blog)

I’m Monica Chase, and apparently having a blog means I should tell you a little about myself. This is always the part where things can go sideways fast, somewhere between a résumé and an overshare, so we’ll try to avoid both.

I’ve been a reader for as long as I can remember. The kind who disappeared into books, stayed up too late finishing them, and was perfectly happy spending an afternoon in a library while other people were doing things involving sunshine.

Writing followed.

These days, I write thrillers about technology, science, power, and what happens when very smart people become convinced they know what’s best for everyone else. Genetic engineering. Artificial intelligence. Biotech. The occasional conspiracy. Usually some perfectly ordinary person getting dragged into something they absolutely did not sign up for.

I’m endlessly fascinated by technology, but I’m not especially interested in cheerleading for it or predicting our inevitable doom. The interesting stuff lives somewhere in the middle. What can we do? What should we do? Who gets to decide? And what happens when the answer to that last question is “someone with a lot of money and very little supervision”?

That tends to be where my stories start.

Before writing fiction full time, I spent years in the corporate world, which probably explains at least some of my skepticism about institutions, hierarchy, and anyone who says, “Trust the process.”

I’m also an introvert who can impersonate an extrovert when required. I overthink things professionally and recreationally. I notice odd details about strangers and sometimes invent entire lives for them before they’ve finished ordering coffee. My brain has never shown much interest in an off switch, so eventually I decided to put it to work.

This blog is where some of that spills out.

You’ll find things about the books and the strange process of writing them, but also the real-world science and technology that sends me down rabbit holes in the first place. Sometimes I’ll wander into publishing, creativity, or whatever has been occupying entirely too much space in my head that week.

And occasionally my rescue dog will make an appearance, usually because he has once again demonstrated that I am not actually in charge here.

So welcome. Read what interests you, skip what doesn’t, leave a comment if you feel like joining the conversation, or lurk quietly from the back of the room.

As an introvert, I respect the lurkers.

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Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash