Category: Writing

AI as Writer’s Assistant: the Automation Edition  

Posted on Posted in ai, LLMs, Uncategorized, Weird Science, Writing2 Comments

(Please note: this post was written and scheduled before the big blowup about the changes to Perplexity’s terms of service, and the automation work described here entirely predates the implementation of those TOS changes on 1/23/2026. I can no longer suggest Perplexity as a support tool for this kind of work, but am mentioning my use of it for transparency’s sake.)

After making  Claude.ai my virtual secretary, genre cheerleader, and typo spotter, the next logical step was automating the repetitive bits. The main reason to go to automations in the first place for certain forms of work is that the AI chatbots cannot hold a 50K manuscript (the length I mostly write to) in its memory. I conducted a few early experiments on Make.com. One of these automations analyzed public domain mysteries from the Golden Age to get a feel for the plot structure. Another was designed to give Amazon genre and SEO advice for my own books. Others helped me pinpoint quotes from the Hunter Healer King trilogy to share on social media, and scenes from the books which might lend themselves to book videos.  

By January 2026, I was burning through Make.com’s free account limits far too fast. Through the Nerdy Novelist on Youtube, I heard about n8n, an open-source automation tool which can be self-hosted on the user’s computer. The only cost for running the automations would be the API credits  spent on the ai models of my choice at OpenRouter.ai. 

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Perplexity Just Nuked Alot of Goodwill

Posted on Posted in ai, Weird Science, World Building, Writing3 Comments

They apparently very discreetly pushed a Terms of Service update back on 1/23/2026 stating that you couldn’t use its output for commercial purposes on the Free or Pro plans, and any stuff you uploaded to it “are belong to us.” the Nerdy Novelist has a good summary here. (If you don’t have time for a 12-minute video, the meat of the discussion starts around 1:30-1:40, and goes for maybe 3-4 minutes beyond that. A lot of the second half is him reflecting on his previously good experiences with this tool.)

This is a bummer for me because if Claude is my secretary and alpha reader, and sometimes my pet fanfic writer, Perplexity is (soon to be was) my research assistant and tech support. At least I don’t use AI for first draft fiction work, so there is that.

Greetings, insta-people and other visitors! I recent-ishly published the third book in a trilogy, so feel free to check that out as well.

Necromancers and Their Wights: The Walking Dead in Hunter Healer King

Posted on Posted in Fantasy, history, Hunter Healer King, Lore Drop, Mel Dunay, Steampunk, World Building, WritingTagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

The dead don’t rest easy in the Old World.

Necromancers summon evil spirits from the underworld and bind them into corpses, creating shambling servants called wights. And if a wight bites you? You might join their ranks.

They are a type of algomancer: feeding on pain and fear like other dark sorcerers. They bring their own particular horror to the world of the Hunter Healer King trilogy.

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Video Thursday: What’s in the Box? Edition

Posted on Posted in ai, Fantasy, history, Hunter Healer King, LLMs, Mel Dunay, Midjourney, Steampunk, videos, Weird Science, World Building, WritingTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

https://youtube.com/shorts/R4meKyRdvYU

Maxim offers Chloe a box, and asks her to keep the artifact inside safe. She holds up the necklace inside and wonders “what has he gotten me into now?” Their relationship isn’t built on grand gestures. It’s built on trust forged while fighting monsters side by side. A romantic moment from Undead Flight, Book 2 of the Hunter Healer King trilogy. Which, by the way, is on sale now as part of Hans G. Schantz’s Spring Book Sale!

The Empire of Noricum In Hunter Healer King: Where Monsters Walk and Airships Fly

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Imagine 19th century Budapest, but with airships overhead, monsters in the shadows, and an elected emperor who’s mostly a figurehead.

Welcome to Noricum, the sprawling empire where the Hunter Healer King trilogy takes place. It’s a land of steam-powered innovation and ancient bloodlines, where Dr. Maxim os Storm hunts algomancers through gaslit streets and Chloe Fortebat discovers that the “Old World” is far stranger than she ever imagined.

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Pride and Planetoids: First Draft Complete

Posted on Posted in ai, Jane Austen, Space Opera, Star Wars, Weird Science, World Building, Writing2 Comments

This is the official title of the space regency, first draft just completed at 58,000 words. I had the basic idea for this a long time ago. I skimmed down a list of lost Jane Austen tv adaptations. I spotted a name I knew very well, from a couple of non-Austen contexts, in the cast for the 1952 Pride and Prejudice. And I thought to myself: “What if Mr. Darcy went around exploding planets?” But I only started brainstorming the idea somewhere in the past three years or so. I started writing it sometime in late 2024, around the time I wrapped up Undead Flight. It continued as a background project in 2025, while I was writing Dragon’s Teeth. It picked up speed when I finished that book.

Pride and Planetoids has been a guinea pig for many of my experiments in using AI, including playing with the trial periods of Sudowrite and Novelcrafter. It will soon be a guinea pig for some automations I built to help with revisions. The actual prose and storyline are human creations, as with my other works.