Category: Gladiator

State of the Author, 3Q2025

Posted on Posted in ai, Art, Editing, Fantasy, Gladiator, Health, history, Jaiya, Jane Austen, LLMs, Mel Dunay, Midjourney, Mystery, Myth, Oldblood Series, Publishing Plans, Space Opera, Star Wars, Steampunk, Weird Science, World Building, WritingTagged , , , , Leave a comment

This really should have been “State of the Author, Mid-Year,” but I was dealing with health issues for most of June (nothing serious, just distracting) and then July was kind of busy at work, so here we are…

Continue reading “State of the Author, 3Q2025” →

Blurbing With Claude AI: Slaying a Tyrant

Posted on Posted in Cool Websites, Editing, Fantasy, Gladiator, LLMs, Marketing, Mel Dunay, Oldblood Series, Weird ScienceTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

(Disclaimer: some of my past “blurbing with LLMs” posts have been very TL;DR because I included a lot of unnecessary fluff that the LLMs churned up and that I didn’t use. This prompt below helps cut down on the fat, so, although this is several paragraphs long, it is much shorter than those previous posts.)

First off, I prompted Claude in this manner: You are a book marketing expert trying to help a fantasy writer. Please help her improve her blurbs. The first novel in her fantasy series is Slaying a Tyrant by Mel Dunay, which may be part of your training data, if so, please feel free to refer to your training data. The problem is that the Empire mentioned in the blurb is mostly a background issue throughout the series [then I spelled out what role the Empire plays throughout the series, and fed Claude the existing blurb for Slaying a Tyrant].

Continue reading “Blurbing With Claude AI: Slaying a Tyrant” →

Stupid Fan Predictions About Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey

Posted on Posted in Fantasy, Gladiator, Myth, Weird Science, World BuildingTagged , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Everybody’s buzzing about this newly announced project, so I thought I’d lay down a few markers about how I think this is going to play out. Please note, I don’t have any inside information nor do I necessarily approve of the decisions I’m describing below, this is just a few thoughts from someone who finds both the Odyssey and Nolan’s movies to be kind of interesting.

Continue reading “Stupid Fan Predictions About Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey” →

State of the Author, 4Q2024

Posted on Posted in Art, Cool Books, Fantasy, Gladiator, Jaiya, Jane Austen, LLMs, Mel Dunay, Myth, Oldblood Series, Paranormal Romance, Publishing Plans, Space Opera, Steampunk, Weird Science, World Building, WritingTagged , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

-First off, I think my books are all in Kindle Unlimited now, free to anyone with a subscription to KU. If you see any sign that they are not in KU, please let me know in the comments.

–Undead Flight (Hunter Healer King Book 2) is now in the hands of my proofreaders. Barring complications, should be ready to publish by Christmas time. Ebook cover is done; blurb is done with AI help (stay tuned, my post on the blurbing process will be out tomorrow. Print cover is dependent on my final cleanup of the manuscript to determine page length.

-Also started Hunter Healer King Book 3 by writing a fairly dark and distressing scene from the last third of the book. This is kind of suboptimal, because stitching together scenes written out of order tends to add (wo)manhours to the first draft process, but I hadn’t figured out the opening scene at that point. I don’t know when it will be released but I know that I am aiming for Christmas of 2025.

-I have had a sci-fi Pride and Prejudice retelling in development for a long time; finally got the first scene down. No projected completion date at this time. My main inspiration for this concept was, weirdly enough, Star Wars: A New Hope. If you dig deep enough into the filmographies of the supporting cast, you will find one with a Pride and Prejudice connection in his earlier career. Regrettably, the catchy working title explicitly references Star Wars, so the official title will probably be something rather sedate of the “Pride and…” format.

-New ebook covers using AI art for Shadow Captain and Spider Star are done; still need to do new paperback covers for them, and ebook/hardcover for the 2 in 1 volume for the duology. Projected release date for the 2 in 1 is first/second quarter of 2025.

-Early stages of AI art covers for the Jaiya Series and Ancestors of Jaiya series. No text layout yet. A four in one of Ancestors might come out in third quarter of 2025; a seven in one of the full metaseries might be sometime in 2026 but a lot could go sideways between now and then.

New Giveaway on Prolific Works!

Posted on Posted in Cheap Books, Cool Websites, Covers, Fantasy, Freebie, Gladiator, Instafreebie, Jaiya, Marketing, MMA Fighter, Myth, Oldblood Series, Space OperaLeave a comment

Happy start of spring! Fantasy author Katherine Wibell has organized a freebie giveaway on Prolific Works (the website formerly known as Instafreebie). She has pulled together a collection of stories and sample chapters that speak of worlds not quite like ours. Some of the covers may not be “safe for work,” but there is a wide variety of worlds and stories represented here.

My contribution is a sample chapter from Slaying a Tyrant, the first book in the Ancestors of Jaiya series: G-rated cover, PG-rated content. Feel free to check it out, if you don’t already have a copy.

Free Kindle Books and Tips

Posted on Posted in Cheap Books, Cool Websites, Fantasy, Freebie, Gladiator, Jaiya, Marketing, Mel Dunay, Oldblood SeriesLeave a comment

Hello! Free Kindle Books & Tips has graciously agreed to feature Slaying a Tyrant on their website tomorrow, and asked that I share a link to their website. I am happy to do so: I’ve been hearing about them ever since I started self-publishing three years ago, and finally had the chance to work with them. They have a really smooth, well-designed website designed to help readers find free and discounted books, and they even have their own app for Kindle Fire! Click here to check them out!

Love and War among the Ancestors of Jaiya

Posted on Posted in Editing, Fantasy, Gladiator, Jaiya, Marrying A Monster, Mel Dunay, MMA Fighter, Oldblood Series, Paranormal Romance, WritingLeave a comment

When I sat down to write the books in my upcoming Ancestors of Jaiya series, I was mostly interested in tracing a particular family through several generations of the country’s history, before their descendants appear in the main Jaiya series, and I wasn’t thinking too hard about the themes of the books. I knew love and romance would be major themes, because all the Jaiya books are clean paranormal/fantasy romances at heart.

Continue reading “Love and War among the Ancestors of Jaiya” →

Retrospection and NaNoWriMo

Posted on Posted in Editing, Gladiator, Jaiya, Marrying A Monster, Mel Dunay, MMA Fighter, NaNoWriMo, Oldblood Series, Paranormal Romance, Publishing Plans, WritingLeave a comment

It’s getting to be that time of year, with National Novel Writing Month only a few weeks away. Last year’s NaNo project turned out to be one of those experimental attempts that don’t produce a complete story, or even something I managed to turn into one.

This isn’t that unusual for me. To give you some numbers here, I have completed NaNoWriMo 13 times, Continue reading “Retrospection and NaNoWriMo” →

Getting Closer and Closer Everyday

Posted on Posted in Editing, Fantasy, Gladiator, Jaiya, Marrying A Monster, Mel Dunay, MMA Fighter, NaNoWriMo, Oldblood Series, Publishing Plans, WritingLeave a comment

Well, finally starting to see some progress here. I have the first two books in the Ancestors of Jaiya series available for preorder, with a release date of October 25, 2019. I am done polishing Book 3 in the series, and am halfway through the process of converting it into a Word document with a linked table of contents. Still to do on Book 3: writing a blurb, creating the print cover, and setting up it up for preorder.

The best case scenario is that I will somehow have all four books ready for release by October 25, 2019, and the first book in the series set to perma-free by October 28, 2019. In a worst case scenario, Book 4 may release later than the others: either early November 2019, assuming I am mostly done with it by the time NaNoWriMo starts, or sometime in December 2019, assuming I don’t manage to get a finalized copy in Word document form assembled by October 31, 2019.

On an unrelated note, I changed my website’s WordPress theme. I am pleased with it, but open to suggestions.