State of the Author, Spring 2026 Edition

The State of the Author is…complicated. On April 9, 2026, I finished the first draft of a murder mystery, ran my DevEditor automation on it, and discovered that it really needed more physical evidence pointing towards the murderer, and more clues in general. The early chapters mostly just needed fairly modest rewrites for tone and emotional content, so I got to work on those right away, figuring that the subconscious would work on the complicated stuff next time I pivoted to one of the WIPs, either Space & Sensibility or HHK0.

Continue reading “State of the Author, Spring 2026 Edition”

AI as Writer’s Assistant: Marketing with AI 

To the extent that I have a philosophy of AI use, it comes to this: I want AI to handle the tasks I don’t enjoy. Falling in love with a set of characters, following them through their adventures, figuring out how the world around them works…to me, those are the fun parts. If I care enough about a story to want to see it on Amazon with a proper cover and a nonzero chance of someone besides me reading it and caring about it, I want to draft it myself. Hunting for typos and logic fails and things I did wrong? Not the fun parts, which is why I have been using AI more in the revision process. Writing a fanfic nobody but me wants to read? Fun but not as fun as it might be, plus it takes mental energy away from writing things that I might be able to sell. Hence, the Fanficcing with Claude label that turns up in this blog. And then there’s marketing. 

Marketing does not come easily to some writers, and I am one of them. When I’m happy with my writing, my opinion of it sounds too egotistical to share. When I’m unhappy with it, my opinion is too depressing for words. As for keywords, blurbs, covers, search engine optimization, noun phrase optimization, my brain tends to lock up or go down unhelpful rabbit holes. So, I turned to AI, first for cover art and blurb help and then for other marketing tasks.  So, a quick rundown on what I’ve done: 

Continue reading “AI as Writer’s Assistant: Marketing with AI “

AI as Writer’s Assistant: Revising with AI 

So, having gotten Pride & Planetoids revised, formatted, and up for preorder, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the use of AI in the revision process, both the automations (see here for the original post on this topic) and the chatbot(s). 

Continue reading “AI as Writer’s Assistant: Revising with AI “

Cedar Sanderson Reviews The Jaiya Series! Yay!

I’ve known Cedar for a while on Discord, and she has very kindly offered feedback on some of my book covers, but I woke up this morning, sore from moving furniture and number crunching for a replacement computer, to find that she had written a very positive review of my first series on her substack: https://cedarlila.substack.com/p/book-review-the-jaiya-series?publication_id=1528321&utm_campaign=email-post-title&r=3l7wwi&utm_medium=email

Thank you so much, Cedar! This really made my day! I am including your Tomato Wyrm in a post of capsule reviews coming soon to this blog.

Video Thursday: Caffeinated Horse Edition

Maxim is a man of discernment. So is his horse. 🐴☕ This is what happens when you don’t ask Midjourney nicely. 🎬 Created with Midjourney + Suno 📚 Maxim stars in the Hunter Healer King gaslamp fantasy trilogy by Mel Dunay — steampunk monster hunting, slow-burn romance, and apparently a horse with refined taste in caffeine. 🎬 Also in the outtakes universe: https://youtu.be/XKpsAwKlKyM 📚 READ THE TRILOGY: Book 1 – Wolf’s Trail: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CR81P9QP Book 2 – Undead Flight: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DNGWVPMH Book 3 – Dragon’s Teeth: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GB86H4N5 Complete series: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CR7ZL3S7 🌐 https://jaglionpress.com/blog/ #HunterHealerKing #AIArtFails #MidjourneyOuttakes #GaslampFantasy #AIArt #SteampunkRomance #IndieAuthor #HorseGirl #Espresso #CharactersWithAttitude

Ten Years Ago Today…

I put a short story with a lousy cover up on Amazon. A couple of months later, I took it down again. It was October of that year before I published my first novel. and now, well…

I would lying if I said I’d found fame or fortune doing this. But it’s been a fun adventure and I plan to keep on with it.