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”Category: Publishing Plans
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 “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.
State of the Author, 4Q2025
It’s been roughly three months since the last State of the Author, so here’s where I’m at:
Continue reading “State of the Author, 4Q2025”Hunter Healer King 3 is Finished
67000 words, so a bit longer than my usual. Usually, I’m pretty happy to wrap things up with whatever set of characters I’m working with, but for some reason, I feel like I’m going to miss Chloe and Maxim. Maybe it’s just because the dual first person POV put me in their heads in a more intense way than any of my other characters. The fact that I managed about 20000 words on other writing projects in the eleven months or so it took me to write this one can probably be attributed to the new workflow. Current publication target is “before the end of the year,” but I have relatives who are gearing up to move and who may need my help, so publication is kind of a moving target. I’ll keep you all posted. In the meantime, not one but two triumphalistic Bollywood songs are in order:
State of the Author, 3Q2025
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”Friday Fixes
Last November, I thought I had gotten Undead Flight into pretty decent shape, and looking ahead to a logistically complicated Thanksgiving, thought, “Gee, I might as well push it out the door now.” From a certain point of view: this was the correct move. My grandmother fell terminally ill in early December, I traveled out there once to see her before she passed, and once again for the funeral. It was only around Christmas time that my mother bought a copy of Undead Flight and brought me the bad news: I hadn’t made all the changes she and my father had advised. So, a week or so back, I sat down with a copy of the book loaded on kindle and my trusty notebook, made notes of what needed to be fixed, and made the fixes last weekend. Then Amazon randomly threw a hissy fit about the print cover, so I had to adjust that. (There was a violent stomach bug in between Amazon fussing about my print cover and me feeling well enough to do something about it.) Anyway, by the time you read this on Friday, Undead Flight should be…not perfect, but but improved. I apologize for any inconvenience.
Frequently Seen Questions About Writing
Occasionally, I offer moral support and solutions that worked for me in the comments section of other writing blogs, but I don’t do a lot of it here. What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. That being said, I’m seeing certain things come up over and over again in certain places on the web, and I feel like I have to put my oar in. Since nobody asked me, I can’t call them “Frequently Asked Questions,” but I feel comfortable calling this “Frequently Seen Questions…”
Continue reading “Frequently Seen Questions About Writing”State of the Author, Start of 2025
My plans for the New Year are always kind of vague, because “Mann tracht un Gott lacht” (Man plans, and God laughs).
Continue reading “State of the Author, Start of 2025”Hunter Healer King, Book 2 is Here!
The name’s Chloe Fortebat, and I am in trouble. First I helped Maxim kill a werewolf, then I kissed him, and then I insulted him when I found out that he was roughly twice as old as he looked. Now Maxim is about to be crowned King of the Stormcrows aboard a luxury airship, and he has invited me to attend. But this ship feels more like a cage with each passing hour: a passenger’s horse has turned up missing, a crewman has turned up dead, and before it all started, I heard noises in the cargo hold. But Maxim has a mind as sharp as my banishing dagger, and between us, we aim to put an end to whatever monster lurks aboard the ship, no matter how awkward we feel around each other right now…
My name is Dr. Maxim os Storm, and I hunt the beasts that haunt the night. With my coronation mere hours away, something stalks the shadows of this vessel: a monster that answers to a human being..but who? And for what purpose? Despite our recent…complications, Chloe’s courage and loyalty make her my strongest ally as I pursue our enemies, and brace for the dreadful pomp and circumstance of my own coronation. The crown of the Stormcrows may await me, but first, we have a mystery to solve – together.
Jaglion Press 