Essay no. 04
I Made A Weird Game that You Can Play or Watch
Since I'm not submitting to literary journals this semester while I figure out AI and my English Composition curriculum, I've been tinkering with AI-use.
3 min read
Writer · Adjunct Professor · Louisville, KY
EricShay Howard
I write personal essays and build software with AI, and I teach writing, business, and IT.
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Game · Project 3
Charterbound: Into the Margins
A game you can play or watch. Play it as an action-adventure about a bookbinder in a kingdom whose words are fading, or sit back and watch five towns full of people live their lives. This page is also its guide to playing.
Personal essays
Recent writing
- I Made A Weird Game that You Can Play or Watch
Since I'm not submitting to literary journals this semester while I figure out AI and my English Composition curriculum, I've been tinkering with AI-use.
- Let the Record Build: Revision, Reflection, and AI
Writing or creating in public usually means letting people see the process along with the product: the drafts, the missteps, the number of times you’ve changed your mind.
- The New Spiritual Literacy Practices of A Now Only Somewhat Atheist Adjunct Professor After An Alien Appeared by His Bed
I woke up in the middle of the night in the summer of 2026 to a gray alien standing by my bed.
- How I Use AI, and Why I'm Publishing Here
What I wrote, what Claude wrote, and who made the decisions. How each essay on this site is made, and why I'm stepping back from journals for now.
How each essay is made
Every essay says how it was made
01
Directed drafting
I talk it through. Claude drafts, and I direct the revisions until it says what I mean.
Sentences: mostly Claude's02
Draft-first
I write the draft. Over several rounds, Claude gives substantial feedback and I revise.
Sentences: mostly mineNo essays yet
03
Co-writing
We trade passages. I write a section, Claude drafts the next, and we revise each other's.
Sentences: a blend04
Solo
I write and revise it myself. None of my own words on the page come from AI.
Sentences: all mineProjects
Things I'm making
Project 3 · Gameactive
Charterbound: Into the Margins
A game you can play or watch. Play it as an action-adventure about a bookbinder in a kingdom whose words are fading, or sit back and watch five towns full of people live their lives. This page is also its guide to playing.
Read more →Project 2 · SoftwareactiveWPA Desk
A strategy game and training simulator for writing program administration. You get three years at the desk of a fictional first-year writing program.
Read more →Project 1 · WebactiveThis website
I moved off Squarespace and rebuilt my site with Claude Code, partly to finally learn how programming and GitHub actually work.
Read more →On X
Follow along
Short thoughts, new essays, and whatever I'm thinking about this week.
@ericshayhowardOn YouTube
Watch along
Videos on writing and teaching. On pause while I rethink the channel.
@weirdericshayhowardAbout
An MFA in Creative Writing, an MBA, and four years in IT at a law firm. Now I build and teach courses across three colleges and universities and write here.
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