Childish & Self-indulgent! Welcome (back?) to A Faster No

On Monday my inbox was flooded—by my standards anyway—with messages saying that my post about Chat GPT with a French fart joke in the title was doing numbers. Chris Beck, who is apparently the CEO of this app?? did something called restacking the post? and now some of his followers are now my followers?

I’m bewildered and delighted to have so many new readers on this here little newsletter. Between this very unexpected mention of my post and my pal Emily Hughes adding me to her recommended stacks for her newsletter Jump Scares, I’ve gained 31 followers in six days. For some blogs this might just be Tuesday, for me, this is pretty phenomenal.

So, hello! If you’re new here, my name is Jennifer Udden. I used to be a literary agent, and now I do all sorts of things—freelance edit, various temp jobs, barista at a coffee shop. I also write romance novels, the first of which is available for purchase.

This newsletter has been and done a lot of things in the years I’ve been writing it. I mostly concentrate on the areas of writing and publishing. When I talk about tech stuff, it’s usually about how tech and art interact, whether that’s the Chat GPT post or how incompatible NFTs are with literature (and also, y’know, copyright law.)

All of which is to say, to my new readers: I don’t know why you decided that a substack with a fart joke for a header was a good use of a follow, but I’m glad you did, and I hope you stick around. The title of this post is taken from the header image, which was a now-deleted comment someone left on Chat, J’ai Pété. George, if you’re reading this, I have horrible news for you: this is my newsletter. Self-indulgent is the name of the game. Before this, I would regularly make people who signed up for a publishing newsletter read about sports. Ice hockey, even. So if I want to make fart jokes in my own internet home, that’s my prerogative!

WHAT I’M READING

Rivers of London, baby! My sister went upstate over the weekend and took the first three books in Ben Aaronovitch’s urban fantasy series with her and read all three of them, and I started a reread as soon as she got back. I’ve already read the first three but realized I never finished the series (though of course, in true Publishing Hoarding fashion, I have all of them already.) If you’re not aware of the series, the Peter Grant series follows the titular character, a PC in the Metropolitan police who, at the beginning of the first book (published as Midnight Riot in the US) discovers that he can see ghosts. He then gets seconded to the Met’s supernatural bureau under the guidance of Thomas Nightingale, England’s last officially sanctioned wizard. They’re tremendous fun, and the way Aaronovitch write’s Grant’s keen observational skills is astonishing. I highly recommend. I also finished reading A Restless Truth last week and after a somewhat slow first thirty pages I absolutely tore through it. It’s got everything! Boats! Intrigue! Murder! Class consciousness! Haunted jewelry!

HOUSEKEEPING

My first novel, Marrying In, is available for purchase on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, and is coming soon to iBooks. If you’ve read it, consider leaving a review—that helps me and the book in the long run!

I’m available to hire for freelance editing services on Reedsy. You can find me on social media on Twitter, Instagram, the A Faster No Discord, and now TikTok. If you buy any of the books linked in this newsletter I receive a small commission at no cost to you.