E675 - David Niemitz - Writer and Teacher - Guild Mage, a serial fantasy novel

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Living The Next Chapter – E675

Guest: David Niemitz, Writer and Teacher

Host: Dave Campbell

Date: February 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this engaging episode, Dave Campbell welcomes David Niemitz, a high school teacher and fantasy novelist, for a deep-dive conversation about teaching, writing, the intersection of role-playing games with narrative, and his breakthrough serial fantasy series "Guild Mage." The two Daves discuss the practicalities of book publishing, the importance of community in writing, the evolution of David’s writing career, and the deeper emotional and philosophical underpinnings of his work.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Teaching Film as Literature & The Hero’s Journey

• David’s teaching focus: High school seniors; course on "Film as Literature."
• Uses films like Moana, Star Wars, The Matrix, and The Princess Bride to explore narrative structure, particularly Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth/Hero’s Journey.
• “We just started a new unit, and we're doing Campbell's Monomyth, the Hero's Journey...I let the kids vote on what we watch. Princess Bride is one of the options.” (Dave, 02:32)

Memorable Teaching Moment:

• Discussion of behind-the-scenes stories from The Princess Bride:
  “One of my favorite ones is Mandy (Patinkin) talking about how, to get Andre the Giant into character for an angry scene, he just slaps him in the face between takes.” (Dave, 04:36)

2. Behind the Scenes: The Author’s Amazon Experience

• Publishing through a traditional publisher vs. self-publishing on Amazon offer very different author dashboards and access to sales data.
  • With a publisher: Only limited visibility—mostly rankings, reviews, and whatever the publisher shares.
  • With self-publishing: Access to direct metrics, including daily royalty estimates, pages read (for Kindle Unlimited), and more granular breakdowns.

On the importance of reading to the end (Kindle):

• “The benefit is that the more pages you read, the more I make.” (Dave, 12:08)
• Audiobook tracking is even less transparent for the author.

3. Community & Resources for New Authors

• David recommends:
  • Reddit communities: r/selfpublish and r/writing.
  • For genre writers: Science Fiction Fantasy Writers of America Discord server.
• Openness to helping fellow writers: “If you have questions, or just want to meet a guy with a really great beard...I’d love to chat with you.” (Dave, 13:37)

4. David Niemitz’s Writing Journey

• Lifelong love of reading/writing instilled by his mother; first major project inspired during a creative-writing-focused master’s he pursued while teaching full-time.
• Debut novel: A Sea Cold and Deep, inspired in part by the science and speculation of water beneath Europa’s surface.
  • “I was fascinated by the moon of Europa...could there be oceans beneath that ice? It seemed like a really cool setting for a science fiction novel.” (Dave, 20:14)
• Initially self-published after querying agents during COVID; later discovered the value of direct community through Kindle Unlimited and reader feedback.

5. Building a Book Series & Community

• Now has six books published, with a seventh on the way; current focus is the “Guild Mage” fantasy series.
• Recommends readers start with Guild Mage series due to growth in his craft and professional publication.
• Community involvement is a central element:
  • Early chapters released on Patreon and discussed on Discord.
  • Direct feedback on everything from story details to cover art (“I always take it to my Discord community before finalizing covers.” Dave, 27:03)

6. The Serial Fantasy Series: "Guild Mage"

• The series traces the life of Liv, starting from age six, through adolescence and into adulthood, with each book increasing in scope and stakes.
• Structured as serial fiction: “It goes chapter to chapter...then is split into books for publication.” (Dave, 23:08)
• Themes: The challenges of being different, coming of age, slow-maturing fantasy races (inspired by classic tropes), and the emotional costs of longevity.

The Heart of “Guild Mage”:

• The emotional kernel is the experience of outgrowing (or being outgrown by) those you love:
  • “I wanted to explore what it would be like to be someone who ages more slowly...you watch the humans you care about grow old and die.” (Dave, 40:44)
  • Inspiration partly drawn from his son’s experience as an autistic child:
    “In some ways he holds on to being young longer...he’s so smart but...it often feels like he’s three years younger socially. I think that absolutely did come out in the early portrayals of this character.” (Dave, 44:21)

7. Collaborative Creation: Cover Art & Open Process

• Integral role of community in feedback for both story and visuals.
• On cover art: “You want a cover that's actiony...with no more than two detailed figures. Any more, and it’s chaos on a tiny screen.” (Dave, 25:24)
• Artist Ben Moran creates the art, feedback loop with community and publisher.

8. Storycraft: From Tabletop Role-Playing to Writing

• David credits decades of tabletop gaming—not just as inspiration, but as training for narrative pacing and audience engagement.
• “Thirty years of doing that (role-playing games) helps me with pacing...just like with players at a game table, you have to keep readers hooked.” (Dave, 35:01)
• He’s a “pantser” (writing by the seat of his pants, with loose planning), but incorporates reader responses into plotting and character focus.

9. Genre Trends and Publishing Realities

• Discusses trends in fantasy/sci-fi cover art (from detailed scenes to minimalistic symbols) and the pressures to cut cost (sometimes with AI art).
• Notes the decline of developmental editing in many publishing paths.

10. Philosophical Moment: The Fifth Dimension

• David shares a mind-expanding framework for thinking about higher dimensions, both as a writer and a thinker:
  • Analogy: Two-dimensional beings unable to perceive the three-dimensional world, just as we struggle to comprehend higher dimensions.
    “If you imagine a patch of bare earth and a circle is drawn, ants inside that circle see an insurmountable barrier—when you could just step over it. This is how higher-dimensional beings would confound our expectations in fantasy.” (Dave, 48:02)
  • Influences the way he constructs the metaphysics in his earlier “Faerie Night” trilogy and enhances the wonder/mystery in his world building.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On teaching and The Princess Bride
  “I say it’s one of the best sword fights on film. And it’s got Andre the Giant—what’s not to love?” (Dave, 03:31)

• On reading to the end on Kindle:
  “The more pages you read, the more I make.” (Dave, 12:08)

• On collaborative writing:
  “All the chapters go up on Patreon first, and people are talking about them on Discord...Before it ever even goes to the publisher, you've got feedback from all these people.” (Dave, 28:22)

• On the emotional inspiration for Guild Mage:
  “In some ways he holds on to being young longer...I think that absolutely did come out in the early portrayals of this character in the first couple of books.” (Dave, 44:21)

• On worldbuilding and philosophy:
  “If you think of people in two dimensions, a finger coming down would baffle them—it’s outside of their world. That’s how I imagine faeries and higher beings in my stories.” (Dave, 49:11)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Teaching Film as Literature & Hero’s Journey – 02:17–05:55
• Amazon Publishing Insights – 08:24–13:20
• Writer’s Communities & Resources – 13:47–15:02
• David’s Origin Story as a Writer – 15:24–21:24
• "A Sea Cold and Deep" Inspiration – 20:14–21:39
• "Guild Mage" Series Overview – 23:08–26:19
• Cover Art Collaboration/Community Building – 25:24–28:55
• Pantsing, Tabletop Gaming & Reader Engagement – 29:44–35:43
• Modern Fantasy Publishing & Trends – 37:01–39:40
• Emotional Core of Guild Mage (Connection to Autism/Personal Experience) – 44:21–45:53
• Fifth Dimension & Philosophical Metaphor – 48:02–50:46

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Where to Find David Niemitz & His Work

• Amazon Author Page: For books, including "Guild Mage" series and "A Sea Cold and Deep"
• Patreon: Access new chapters, join Discord, participate in the journey
• Discord: For direct community engagement (via Patreon)

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Closing

This episode offers a candid, insightful look into the daily realities of being both a teacher and a writer. David's advocacy for community, openness in his process, thoughtful approach to storycraft, and his deep emotional investment in his characters and themes make this a must-listen (or read!) for both aspiring writers and dedicated fantasy readers. The “two Daves” chemistry and humor keep the conversation lively, and David Niemitz’s personal stories offer heart and practical encouragement throughout.

Transcript

[Dave]

To me, it does. Yeah. And I'm sure every author is going to come at it from a different angle, but I think I've been doing role playing games since I was, like, 10 years old.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

And so 30 years of doing that helps for me, among other things, to think about pacing. Right. Because when you've got a table of five or six people and you don't. You don't want them to get bored.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

And so you have this sense of like, okay, it's time for me to drop something interesting to get their attention again. I need to do something to keep hooking them. There needs to be some development that is dramatic or funny or terrifying or put something at risk to keep them coming back for more. And it's the same thing in a book.

[Podcast Host]

Welcome back to the Living the Next Chapter podcast. I remember which show I'm on, and I'm excited to have Dave here with me. Like, what's better than one Dave? How about two? Now when I'm looking at Dave on the screen, I have, like, scruff, and that's about the extent of what I can do. Dave's got this glorious, like, grab it, hold on to it. Kind of run your fingers through a beard. And he. He looks just like. Like a sage.

[Dave]

Like, oh, I like that.

[Podcast Host]

I need to sit up straight. I need to sit right. You like that?

[Dave]

The great sage.

[Podcast Host]

I can sit up straight because Dave's here. And not only that, Dave's a teacher. So now I need to pay attention. He's gonna slap my fingers with something. So we don't get to do that. I'm excited to have him. Right.

[Dave]

We don't get to do that anymore. We get in trouble.

[Podcast Host]

You should throw, like, chalk brushes.

[Dave]

Oh, yeah, I know.

[Podcast Host]

Or chalk when you get pinged right in the head. But, yeah, I can't do that anymore. No, Dave's here. So we're gonna go back and forth. The two Daves are going to be talking about writing and all the things that Dave's up to now. The one thing that Dave has that I don't have is he is an author, and I'm excited to have him on the show. Dave, welcome to the show.

[Dave]

Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

[Podcast Host]

Come on. All right. Yeah. So I'm jealous of the beer.

[Dave]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host]

I gotta just put that out there. Just. If I put it out there, I can move on. So congratulations. Beautiful. Well done. Dave, tell everybody where you are in this big world of ours.

[Dave]

Sure. I'm. I live in Connecticut in New England in the United States of America. Right. And yeah, I teach. I teach in Connecticut and I. I write from Connecticut. Yeah. Cool.

[Podcast Host]

What. What's your student age group? What are you teaching?

[Dave]

Seniors? I teach seniors and I teach film as literature.

[Podcast Host]

Oh.

[Dave]

Yeah. It's a lot of fun.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, What's a class like for that? That sounds interesting. They didn't teach me that in high school.

[Dave]

Now it's. It's. I've seen it in one or two schools, but it's not particularly common. It's more common as a college course. Right. As an undergrad course. But yeah. So right now I just started a new unit, and we're doing Campbell's Monomyth, the Hero's Journey. And so. And so we've got a selection of movies I let the kids vote on. Vote on them. We're gonna. We're gonna watch things like Moana and Star wars and the Matrix and all these sorts of things.

[Podcast Host]

Come on. Like, that's all. That's a class. Yeah. Geez, man. Come on. Why did I miss out on this? Have you done Princess Bride?

[Dave]

That's actually one of the options for this unit.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, that's a story.

[Dave]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

I love that story.

[Dave]

It's so good.

[Podcast Host]

I really do. That's what. I would be my choice if I was in your class, Dave. A people wonder why there's an old guy in your class. But two, I would pick the princess.

[Dave]

Several of the classes have voted for it. I know. We're going to be watching a couple classes. Yeah. Okay.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Anyways. One of the greatest sword fights ever.

[Dave]

That's what I tell them when I'm selling them on it. I say it's one of the best sword fights on film. And it's got Andre the Giant, like, what's not to love?

[Podcast Host]

And no more rhyming.

[Dave]

I mean it.

[Podcast Host]

I mean it. Does anybody want to. Yeah, right. Yes. I love that. And the sword fighting coaches for that sort of fight were the ones from Star Wars.

[Dave]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

So. So there you go.

[Dave]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

So that's a thing. I was listening to an audiobook of Princess Bride from the main character.

[Dave]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

Who played Wesley. And it was spectacular. It was so good because they talked about stuff that happened on the set and all of the things, of all the characters in there, there's. What a great ensemble. Right.

[Dave]

There's been a couple. I'm trying to remember what year it was exactly, but there was somewhere on the 30th anniversary, there was like a Vanity Fair, big photo spread, an article, an interview, and so There were a couple of things that came out with the surviving actors because a couple of people have died. Right. But so there were a lot of sort of behind the scenes stories that came out. And one of my favorite ones is Mandy. God, I hope I say his name right. Patink.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Right.

[Dave]

And so Andre the Giant is, was French, Right. And so his native language was not English, and so he would sometimes have difficulty acting the lines.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

And on the, on the one hand, he's trying to get the lines out, but then getting the emotion right. And so there is this moment that Mandy talks about where he was. Fezik was supposed to be angry. And so in between takes, he just reaches out and slaps angry the Giant in the face. Can you imagine doing that? This guy could crush your head. Right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.

[Dave]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Really?

[Dave]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. Yeah. There's so much in there to love. What, like, what a great class to teach.

[Dave]

Like, oh, yeah, it's fun.

[Podcast Host]

How do you, how do you get signed up for that as a teacher? Because everyone else is teaching gym class or, you know, home EC or whatever, and here you are teaching like, hey, let's watch a movie and talk about this. This is so cool.

[Dave]

I got really lucky. I mean, I, I was looking for a job as a teacher 13 years ago or so, right. And I happened to interview in, in the town of Wolcott, which is where I teach right now. And whoever had just left had this class and it was a brand new class, like they had just written the curriculum. I don't even think they taught a year yet. And so that we, they were like, we need to send someone to come in and teach, you know, three sessions of this class and then some juniors, right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

So I did it and then I've, I've basically done it ever since. And as the years have gone on, it's become so popular as a senior class that Now I've got five sessions of it and I have like 120 something kids.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Dave]

It's great. Right up until I have to grade all the papers which are, which are coming in over this weekend and into Monday.

[Podcast Host]

That sounds like a fun, a fun class to teach. And I'm sure the kids are like, interested in the topic and it's like something they can identify with. Talk about taking your home, your work home with you for your homework. Go home, everyone, and watch Star Wars. Oh, really? Like, that's my homework. Okay, Mom, I'm doing my homework. Yeah, no, you're watching Star Wars. Star Wars. Dave told me. Teacher Dave told me I have to do it. So.

[Dave]

And we have this. We have to. We have this service and it's got the craziest name. Are you ready?

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

So our. Our library media specialist signs up for various databases and things like that. And so there's a movie database called Swank.

[Podcast Host]

Swank. That almost sounds like you shouldn't be using this. Swank.

[Dave]

But so as, as a school, if you sign up for it, you can not only stream all the movies on this database, you check them out basically every year.

[Podcast Host]

Oh.

[Dave]

But you also get a link and the kids can take it home on their, like their school Chromebooks and they can. They can load up the movie through the database and they can watch it.

[Podcast Host]

That sounds swanky.

[Dave]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Right. I guess it's living up to its name.

[Dave]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. One thing we were chatting about before we went came on, which I found really intriguing and I don't know why I've never asked any of my guests in the past. This is from an. From a reader's perspective. When I buy a book on Amazon, for example, I prefer to buy them in person at a bookstore, but when I buy them on Amazon, I don't know what happens. And like, there's a lot of different components. I always talk on this show how important it is to leave a review. And if you purchase the book, it's a verified review, which is even like a little like a level up. But I really have no idea what you as an author see on the back end of Amazon that encourages you, kind of monitors your sales. I'm just curious for a new author that's listening, Dave, and they don't, they don't really understand what Amazon and what the dashboard looks like. Is there like a couple things that you'd suggest to an author listening when they set up their Amazon page that they should kind of pay attention to? Because a couple things you brought out that as I'm hearing you talk, this is something we should talk to the authors about and just encourage them to, to keep their eye on these things. What do you look at? What's important?

[Dave]

So I guess one of the first things to say, and I don't think I said this to you before, is that there's a real difference depending on whether you're through a publisher or self publishing on what you see.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

And if you have books that are in both categories, you get different information.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

Right. So if something is through a publisher. So my, my current series is through Mango Media and through Podium for Audio. Right. I Don't get anything except what you can see yourself with like two exceptions, right? And the two exceptions are whatever the publisher shares with you, right? And if you, and you have to kind of go out and do this in your dashboard, if you merge it in with all your other books as it's under your author account, then you can see these little graphs that Amazon gives you. And they give you graphs based on the ranking on Amazon. So you don't see copies sold, you don't see money earned, but you see these graphs that go up and down and spike, okay? And they break it out by categories. So like ebook, paperback, audiobook, what have you. But then other than that, all you see are, you know, you can load up your page just like anyone else and you can see the reviews and the star ratings and the category rankings and things like that. And then your publisher, depending on your publisher and how communicative they are, right. You might get a statement in four months, right. Or three months. And then it shows up and you log in and you look at your statement and you see a royalty statement, right. Or if it's a very communicative publisher, like I have, I have a guy from Mango, right. That every Monday has a check in with me and I can say, how are we doing?

[Podcast Host]

Good.

[Dave]

Right. And so we're both on Discord and we just have like this chat every Monday. But every publisher is different, right. And I, I suspect, though, I don't have enough experience to know for certain that the sort of, the bigger the publisher, the less.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

Personal interaction you're going to have and let you know.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

But then if you self publish through Amazon, you do get a different amount of information. You get this dashboard that you can go to, go to for kdp, which is Kindle Direct Publishing, right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

And by default it'll give you a readout for the last 30 days where you'll see by each day kind of like these bars of how much money you've made. Right? And it's the royalties estimator. You can also choose to look at orders or you can choose to look at Kindle Unlimited pages read, right? And so you get these sort of, these pieces of data and you can, you can break it out and you can go farther back and you can, the last 90 days, you can look at the last year, you can look at, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and they, they color code your books and you can see how you've done month to month and you know, all that sort of thing.

[Podcast Host]

One question, the Kindle. The Kindle version. Like, I'm, I'm comparing this to podcasting. In podcasting, we can see on some players if our listeners are listening to the end of the podcast. And the listening to the end of the podcast is a signal to the apps and the hosting that this is a good episode because people come and stay to the end. They don't leave like 10 seconds into the podcast. So that's something that I always encourage listeners of podcast. If you love the show, listen to the end, because that's going to signal, hey, this is a good episode. And everyone that comes here stays to the end. Does Kindle Kindle reward authors or is there a benefit to authors for us to read the book to the very end on Kindle rather than like reading half of it and then just never coming back? Is that, does that play in at all for you? As another.

[Dave]

All it does is give us page count.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

How many, how many pages have been read. And you get paid based on the pages read.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, so that's. Yeah, okay.

[Dave]

Right. So. So the benefit is that the more pages you read, the more I make.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, okay. So everyone listening. I'll look at your Kindle and look at those 25 books you haven't finished yet and go. Yeah. Is there a time frame or. It can like, I read like three chapters, come back a year from now and read the rest of the book and you still get paid then. Yep, okay, okay, good, good, good. Okay.

[Dave]

Yep. And then the rate changes. The rate changes based on the subscribers every month. And there's like this complicated formula and they put it out every month. And I. There are authors that pay attention to it and I don't.

[Podcast Host]

So as a reader, everyone, for your Kindle device, as you read, make sure when you're talking to Dave's book specifically, you're reading all the way to the end. Same for audiobooks. If I listen to the end of the audiobook, do you. To track that?

[Dave]

You know, I have even. I have less information for audio.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, really? Okay.

[Dave]

I, I haven't self published audio. I have a friend who did actually. You had him on Ben. Ben Shankman's done his own audio.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

But I've never done my own audio. I've either done through Tantor or through Podium, and I, I have no idea. I can see the reviews. Right. I can, I can get royalty statements, but I don't know if you've, I don't know what sort of data looks like for them.

[Podcast Host]

So my suggestion, if you're a young Author. A new author. And you're setting up your Amazon and you have questions or you just want to meet a guy with a really great beard, either way, or you want to talk about Princess Bride, that Dave would love to chat with you. I'm sure, send you an email with a couple questions you'd be okay with that day.

[Dave]

Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

[Podcast Host]

Very good. There you go. So we'll have the links for Dave in the show notes. As an author, you're like, I don't know who to turn to. I can tell you Dave's a great guy to talk to. So.

[Dave]

And there's a couple of good. There's a couple of good communities to go to also.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, good. Yeah. Is it at the top of your head?

[Dave]

Yeah, there's this. There's a. So depending on what you're doing, Right. If you're. If you're self publishing, there's a self publish subreddit.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

That's just R. Self publish. It has a lot of people on it. There's also a R slash writing.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

Right. That's more general.

[Podcast Host]

Easy. Yeah.

[Dave]

If you get to the point, and this one's a little tougher and I don't know other genres. Right. But if you get to the point that you can prove certain levels of income and I. I think you can even join as like an associate member without proving income. You can join the Science Fiction Fantasy Writers of America Guild. And there's a discord which has a ton of people, like, I'm on it. There's a ton of people that you can talk to with all kinds of questions about basically everything. You know, whether it from contracts to publishers and who's, you know, what's a scam and what isn't a scam. And it's how you get in for the Nebula Awards. Right. If you want to get nominated for the Nebular Awards.

[Podcast Host]

Nice. Lots of great advice. It's good. I like resources, David. I like to give people something practical that they can take with them and use right away. So. Excellent. Good resource. I'm glad I've asked you because again.

[Dave]

As many as I can as it comes up. We'll give you a bunch. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, good. I have no idea why I've never asked anybody this before, but you were like, sharing some great insights and I'm like, oh, we got to talk to the people listening.

[Dave]

So.

[Podcast Host]

Good stuff. Yeah, excellent. All right, so let's jump into your author journey. For the readers that are here, they're probably never going to write a book, but they love Finding an author to fall in love with. And you have a lot to love.

[Dave]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host]

How did you start, like, how did you start your stories? How'd you start writing from. From a place of pleasure. More than you know. Creating work for you, for the students in your school. How, how did this part come for you?

[Dave]

Well, I've loved to read and write basically as long as I can remember. And I can give my mother a lot of credit for that. We had a huge amount of books in the house when I was growing up. Science fiction and fantasy and classics and all sorts of other things. And I can remember when she went back to college that she took a creative writing class and she was trying to write a book. And I can remember reading it. She banged it out on a typewriter and I was reading this. So I've loved it forever. But then how do you make a living? So I went to school and I got a degree to teach and I did that, you know, Starting from about 2010 on, I've been teaching. But at a certain point, certainly in Connecticut, you need to get a master's, right? And the requirements may be different from state to state, but I think I had like seven years or something. I don't remember what it was exactly from when I got my, my first full time teaching job that I had to have a master's in. But they don't really care what the master's is in so much, right. I mean, it can be education, but it can be your subject. It can be. There's a certain amount of leeway as long as you do the paperwork and you give it to your local district and they say, thumbs up. Right? We'll, we'll count this. So I was looking around and I don't even remember where it came from. It may have been a piece of junk mail in my, my teacher mailbox because you get all these, you know, all this junk. And, and there was this program through Farley Dickinson for Creative Writing for, for teachers, right. And so I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this, right? I'd rather do this than, than several other things that I can think of. And so I, I did this degree and I was kind of crazy to do it. Looking back, I don't know how I possibly did it. I, I had at the time like a two or three year old son and I was working full time and I somehow banged out a master's in about a year and a half.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Dave]

And I don't know how I did.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Dave]

But I can remember. I can remember like going to Starbucks to write, you know, and all sorts of. All sorts of different things. Anytime you could find, you were writing. And by the end of this masters, you had to turn in, you know, 100 something page portfolio and you just screen, not screenplay. Like a play, Right. Script for a play. There was poetry, there was essays, there was short stories. There was just all sorts of different stuff. And you, you know, at the end you turn it all in. And as I was doing this, I had this idea for a science fiction novel. And in between classes I would take the laptop out and like sit down on the grass or something. Or, you know, after I was done doing, doing whatever work I needed to turn in, and I would be banging out chapters and whenever there would be a professor lecturing about, you know, creative writing, I would. There would be something I could use. You know, I would try to take some piece that I could use to. To move forward. And I really had very little idea what I was doing, right. Because it was my first book. And I had even less idea what to do once it was done right, because then that's the next big. The big step. And that ended up being the first novel I self published, which was a sea cold and deep. And I ship. I shopped it around to a couple of agents, but it was. This was during COVID It was like right in the middle of COVID And the Boston Writing Conference was the one I did, and it was a Covid year, so it was all virtual. And so you were. You were signing up on this schedule to have video calls with agents to pitch your stuff over the course of a weekend or something like that. And you got like 20 minutes or something to talk to each agent. And it was nice. It was speed. It was so. Oh my. Well, yeah, right. It's like a combination of speed dating and like applying for jobs and horribly stressful. Yeah, at least I thought it was. So I became aware of Kindle Unlimited around the same time and I was trying it out and I. I realized that like, you know, I could just put it out myself.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

So I did that. But I had no idea how to market anything, you know, or how to find readers. And so. But that was the beginning, right? And we've moved forward from there. And that was. Geez, when did, when did I do that? Looks to me like 2022. So that was about three. About three years ago.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Excellent. So the idea for that story in particular is he cold and deep. Where did the idea, the concept of the story arc for that one come.

[Dave]

From, then it came in a lot of pieces. I. I had this idea to. I'd been fascinated by the moon of Europa and which is a moon of Jupiter, and that we're fairly confident has an icy surface. And so several scientists have speculated that there could be water or oceans beneath the ice.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

And so this seemed like a really cool setting for a science fiction novel. And I was, at the time I was writing it, every time I would see some sort of new breaking technological development or story come up on Facebook or Reddit or anywhere, I'd be like, saving these articles and tagging them, right? And I'd be like, oh, this is cool. I can use this, I can use this, I can use this. And so I. I set myself a rule that I was only going to use technology that I could figure out at least some basis in current theory or breaking developments for all.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

And that I was gonna sort of stay within that sandbox and not have anything outside of that. So it's on the harder end of science fiction, though. I always feel a little self conscious saying that because when I think of hard science fiction authors, I think of people who were actually scientists.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

A lot of these guys back in World War II who worked for the Navy and stuff like Heinlein and Asimov and all these guys had real experience and in this stuff. And I don't, you know, but. But I tried to be on the harder end of science fiction.

[Podcast Host]

Awesome. So that was your first. First release book then, for us as readers. Right. How many books do you have currently for. For readers to fall in love with?

[Dave]

We have six out right now and a seventh coming in a month.

[Podcast Host]

Wow, excellent. Do your books have some kind of common tie across all of them or like, for a reader, like, is there some. Should they be starting with a C? And Cold, Deep and kind of following your journey as an author? Where's a good starting point then?

[Dave]

I mean, I think that I've like, Like anything. You want to be getting better as you go.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Right. You want to be improving your craft. And that sounds almost like not very humble to say. Right. But I would recommend people start with the current series because I do think it's the best thing ever. And so far.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, right.

[Dave]

And it's. And it's what's coming out. Right. And it's the first series that I've managed to have publishing deals with, which is so exciting. And so I'm very much hoping forward that the series has like, a real future to it.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

And it's really exciting to be doing it right now. So that's where I'd push people. And then if you liked that. Right. If you are someone who likes fantasy, then you could go back to my earlier trilogy, which is the Faerie Night trilogy. And if you're someone who likes science fiction, you could look at Sea, Cold and Deep.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. Your current series is there. Are they standalone or do we need to read them in order?

[Dave]

You should definitely read them in order.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, okay. All right.

[Dave]

Definitely.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

Yeah. So it's. It's a fantasy series that starts with a young girl named Liv who starts basically about six years old, and it progresses forward through her life until I think in the current books, she's somewhere around 19 or 20, basically. Okay, right, let's go. Go further from there. But I think you would be a little confusing to skip around between the. The age groups. And it was originally written as a piece of serial fiction, so it goes chapter to chapter to chapter to chapter as the books go on, and then it's split up into books for publication.

[Podcast Host]

So the Guild Mage. So Apprentice is the first in the series then. Okay, all right, let's talk a little bit. Let's focus in on these because the. The one that's pre order right now, that's Coral Bay. Is that right?

[Dave]

Yep. Coral Bay. Yeah. That's the third one. Yep.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

And at some point soon, we're gonna have the fourth one up for pre order, but I don't know exactly when.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, okay. All right. Lots and lots to go. Okay. I love the covers, by the way. They're beautiful. I can see. Like, is that something you have. You have input into, or is that done by your. By your team? Like, where does this come from?

[Dave]

Like, so it's. Right, so working with a publisher.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

And actually working with two publishers, which makes it slightly more complicated, though everyone at both podium and Mango has been wonderful. Right. So it's not difficult. It's just that there's more people in the email thread.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

So we start with Mango, and I send them, first of all, I send them the manuscript. Right. And while that's going through the editor, then we start to talk about COVID concepts, and they give me sort of a guideline for the genre, which is that for the genre they're trying to sell and sort of the market they're trying to sell to, they want a cover that's actiony, that's got some sort of, like, fighting or magic or something that's going on that's visceral and Active. Right. And that furthermore, because so much is online sales and on phones and iPads and things like that on Amazon, that there's a practical limit to how many characters you can have on a piece of art.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

So not necessarily something I would have thought of, but basically you've got to imagine that someone's looking at a little box that's, you know, maybe an inch and a half by, you know, an inch or something like that. And that's. That's the size of the art. So you can't have something that's super, super intricate. So basically what I'm told is like, two detailed figures is good. It can be stretched to three. But then anything past that.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

Is too much. You can have like a hoard of undead or something, which we did for Cover Book four. Right. But you can't have a ton of intricate, detailed characters because it just won't. It'll just look like a mess when you look at it in a small. A small thing. So. So you start by sort of thinking like, okay, so these are my requirements, right? I need, like, an action scene from this book that hopefully isn't too spoilery that only and. And has, you know, within this number of people. And then I also don't want it to look repetitive for the previous. Previous covers, right? You don't want to. You don't want them to all be cookie cutter exactly the same. So you write up a kind of a little blurb and you send it off. And actually, we've been mostly doing two covers at a time that I'll send off two concepts to the artist, whose name is Ben Moran.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

And so if you like the art, you can go look him up on DeviantArt or anything like that, Right? Because he's out there and I don't communicate with him directly at all. Like, I talk to the publisher, and the publisher talks to him because they employ the artist, not me.

[Podcast Host]

Right?

[Dave]

But what they do send me is they send me sketches and works in progress and then they ask for feedback. And a lot of the time, I shouldn't even say a lot, basically every time, I immediately take it to the Discord community. Right, that's great. So we have. We have a disc. We have both a Discord and a Patreon community. So I'll put it on Patreon, and then Patreon's hooked into Discord. So you. There's a bot on Discord that hooks you to Patreon, and anyone who joins the Patreon gets, like, an invite to the Discord. And you get a role to go with your subscription. And so I'll be like, okay, so here's the concept art for five. What do you guys think? You know, and smart. Right. They'll, they'll give me all sorts of feedback and then I'll send that back to the, you know, to the publisher and then it'll go back and forth and, and then you end up with a cover.

[Podcast Host]

That's a key point, I think, for authors that are listening too, Dave, is that building in public and having people come along on the journey instead of hiding behind a curtain and then just one day pulling around from the curtain, go, my new book is here. And it was like, oh, I didn't even know you were writing this one. You know, it's like, take them on the journey with you and you'll get input, you'll get buy in and anticipation builds over time. Right.

[Dave]

And that works really well for the writing as well. For me.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

The sort of like open development model, if you want to think of it that way.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Because all the chapters go up on Patreon first, and then people are talking about them on Discord. You know, it drops whenever I finish writing the first draft of the chapter and they're immediately like, you got typos here. I got to go in and fix them. Yeah, right. But I mean, you know, before it ever even goes to the publisher, you've got feedback already from all these people. And I. And so like, I mean, on the, on the Discord, how many people do I have on this Discord? Does it give me a number somewhere? I don't know. I think I've got like, I've got a couple hundred at least on the Discord. I don't know exactly how many. Right.

[Podcast Host]

It's good.

[Dave]

And so you get, you get all this feedback.

[Podcast Host]

So giving your, giving your audience advance vision into what you're writing, does that actually turn around and help you with your editors to give them a better edited thought through work? Does that, does that kind of.

[Dave]

Yeah, yeah, I feel like it does because any mistake I make, they're going to pick up on.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

You know, if I use the wrong name somewhere or they'll say, oh, that, that character is actually something, you know, had brown hair and I've forgotten because it was 200 chapters ago.

[Podcast Host]

But.

[Dave]

But they know. Right. And so it really helps to, to tie everything together and to make it make sense. And I, I don't know if every author thinks this way. Right. Have you in, in your other conversations, have you talked to authors about this? Sort of the two categories of pantser versus Plotter.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's come up before. Yeah. Again, not being a non author host here, I. I go back and forth as to what my approach would be if I was writing hypothetically, because I don't have an answer to this question. But yeah, that's. That's really intriguing because some they seem to be all one, but not a combination of both. Usually they seem to be one or the other.

[Dave]

I'm definitely on the pantser end.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

I do a lot of prep ahead of time in terms of building a world and building characters and I have like extensive notes on the world and I have ideas of where I want the story to go and I have usually a list of a running list of bullet points. And when I finish each book, I start a new Google document and I take the old list of bullet points and I copy paste it over and then I delete everything that I don't need anymore. And then I keep adding to this new list of bullet points. And if it gets complicated enough, which it has for some book climaxes, I pull out note cards. Right. Just like normal like. Right? Yeah, yeah, note cards. And I break down chapters on the note cards and then I can rearrange them if I need to. But that's only when something gets really complicated and order of events builds into usually a pretty complicated climax. Right. I had to do that certainly for book six. I had a. I'll try not to get too spoilery, but I had like a four different point of view war going on. Right. For this battle. And so I like, I had to know who was where and how they were responding to the things that were happening around them. So I sort of, I needed a more in depth system of organization. But because I'm a panther and because I don't know if I mentioned this to you before, but I've done a lot of tabletop role playing games over the years.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, right, right.

[Dave]

So I'm kind of used to listening to the players in those games and getting ideas about what they like and what they don't like and what they want to see more of and then incorporating that into what I do. And I do the same thing for readers.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

If they, if they glom onto a character and love a character and I'm like, well, I could probably give that character more screen time.

[Podcast Host]

Right, right.

[Dave]

I could expand their role. If people are liking that character or that relationship, if people are curious about some aspect of the world, then I can delve into it and more. I can look for an opportunity to delve into in more detail.

[Podcast Host]

It's interesting. One thing I love is that you could reach over and just pull up those cards. They're like within arms reach of our conversation today. That's a good sign because that's not made up everyone. He just reached over, grabbed the cards and showed me. So they're right there in front of him. The whole idea of these table top role games and stuff. I've had multiple people on the show and that was their origin story of writing, but they didn't get into these games to be a writer. It was more of a result of being in the games that the ideas started coming well.

[Dave]

And I think so many of us probably started reading fantasy and science fiction, fell in love with it and then wanted to be in that world. And so we played things like Dungeons and Dragons and what have you. Right. And then that, you know, builds your, your exposure to the genre and it's. Things happen simultaneously. Are you aware of the sort of like the, the indie press sort of game lit or lit RPG thing that's going on online?

[Podcast Host]

Not really.

[Dave]

Okay, so this is.

[Podcast Host]

Come on.

[Dave]

Okay, okay, so this is. Let me unveil this corner of the Internet.

[Podcast Host]

I love this.

[Dave]

So, so there is this genre that is really big on Kindle Unlimited and web novels and Audible that really takes people who love role playing games, whether it's tabletop role playing games, computer role playing games, things like that. And there's a lot of intersection with people who love like anime and manga. Right. And fuses it into these stories that have deliberate attempts to evoke the feeling of, you know, like playing a game.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

Where some of them go so far as to have like Dungeons and Dragons character sheets, basically. Right. Level 20 fighter and what have you. But other is, it's just sort of an attempt to evoke that feeling of like, okay, it's Saturday night and we're getting together with our friends and we're going to have another adventure and we want to sort of feel like that. Right. And it's very interesting. The one that has crossed over, probably the best right now and is really popular and trending online and is crossed over to bookstores is Dungeon Crawler Carl. I don't know if you heard that one or not.

[Podcast Host]

No, I haven't.

[Dave]

You should look it up because it's an indie, indie published book that is now in Barnes and Noble and hardcover and it's, it's making a big splash and it's opening up the Genre to a lot of people who wouldn't have other otherwise heard about it.

[Podcast Host]

This. The role playing games and the gameplay being that you're living in a story in real time, playing the game, do you find that skill and being able and having that experience becomes a tool in your toolbox when you start writing so that your readers enter into your story in a similar fashion?

[Dave]

To me, it does, yeah. Yeah. And, and I'm sure every author is going to come at it from a different angle. But, but I think I've been doing role playing games since I was like 10 years old.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Right.

[Dave]

And so 30 years of doing that helps for me, among other things, to think about pacing. Right. Because when you've got a table of five or six people, Right. And you don't, you don't want to get bored.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

And so you have this sense of like, okay, it's time for me to drop something interesting to get their attention again. I need to do something to keep hooking them. I need to. There needs to be some development that is dramatic or funny or terrifying or put something at risk to keep them coming back for more. And it's the same thing in a book.

[Podcast Host]

Right. And see, that's interesting because I think if you don't have that experience as a writer and as an author, you, you don't have, you don't have that gear that you can switch into and go, okay, the story is kind of lagging here. I need to, do, I need to go this direction because of my experience in gameplay, I would anticipate that the story is going to make a turn. And if I come to writing and I don't have that experience, that's a muscle I would have to develop while I'm writing. You already have it developed. It's just whether or not you're going to use it in this situation.

[Dave]

Yep. And you know, in traditional publishing you would have a developmental editor.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Who would go through it and who would say, I don't know if people know about. There's different types of editors. Right. So there's developmental editors that, that are broad stroke story and there's editors that are on proofreading and grammar and all those sorts of things. Right. And a developmental editor is the sort of person whose job it is to dig into the story and say it's lagging in these, these middle chapters right here. You need to do something. Right. My understanding is that there is less and less of that available to authors. Right. So if you are self publishing, you only have what you pay for.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

And a lot of people don't have the money, the thousands of dollars to hire multiple rounds of editors.

[Podcast Host]

Right, True. Yeah.

[Dave]

But even if you are traditional publishing or through a small press, it really depends on what potential they see in you. There are some off. I want to say I was talking to four publishers about Guildmage. Right. And only one of them talked about developmental editing at all. The other. Right. And yeah, yeah. The other one said, for the most part, said, well, it's clear that people are already enjoying it because you've got, you know, almost 7,000 followers. Right. So you don't need a developmental editor. We just want a copy editor. And it lets them push it out quicker and it lets them save on costs.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, right.

[Dave]

But my understanding is that there's less and less resources for some of these things, unless you're already sort of a big name author or they think that you're going to be a big name author. And you can see this in covers too.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Do you know Jenny Wirz?

[Podcast Host]

No.

[Dave]

She. She wrote fantasy. Well, she's still around. Right. I don't know if you ever read anything by Raymond Feist. He had a whole fantasy series called the Rift War Saga and she wrote a trilogy within that world co authored with him. And she was also, at various points a cover artist. And she had put up a whole thing. I don't remember which Reddit community it was on, but she was on a couple of months ago talking about the change in cover art for fantasy and science fiction and that if you went back 30 years from now, right, if you went back to 1995, that you would go into Barnes and Noble and every fantasy you would pick up would have characters and a landscape and monsters and a full scene. And a lot of what you look at now is often a sort of like a, you know, maybe like a symbol. Right. And then. And then a nice fancy font, but that it's not painted cover art and that essentially it's an expense that can be cut. It costs more to hire a painter to paint a cover.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

And so a lot of them are not doing it anymore or they're pushing.

[Podcast Host]

A button and AI is just going to make it for them. They're like, all right, I pushed a button. I'm creative. Well, you're good at pushing buttons. You got that. That's good. Congratulations.

[Dave]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. I like, I love, I love the covers of your books. The colors. Just.

[Dave]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host]

Stand off the page, like. And then that whole thing about don't judge a book by its cover. I'm like, shouldn't we, like, shouldn't we be looking at a cover going, this makes me want to read this book. I don't know.

[Dave]

It's your first piece of marketing, right? Right. The first thing that people see is the COVID And if it doesn't hook them, they're going to look at the next one, right? Yeah. So it does. It matters a lot. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

I don't know if we need to retire that phrase.

[Dave]

I don't know. Well, it's. As a metaphor. It's an interesting metaphor.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Certainly, if you're looking at how you want to judge people.

[Podcast Host]

Right, right.

[Dave]

That you don't want to judge by appearances and you want to get to know someone. But I mean, from the point of view of trying to get a book out to readers.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Your cover really does matter, you know, you can't. It matters a lot.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Okay, so for readers then, for Guild Mage, kind of give us the overview then, because I want to touch on this. I don't want to keep you too much longer, but I want readers to go, this is for me. And I know someone else that's going to love this series. So let's talk to the readers and give them the 101 introductory welcome speech, talk about this series. Let's bring them in so they feel really welcome with this series.

[Dave]

So for me, what hooked me into writing this, the concept, like the kernel, the nugget that had me go forward and write this was I had seen and read over the years so many classic fantasy series where, you know, there would be an elf or a dwarf or what have you, these, these sort of classic trope fantasy races that live longer than humans. And though there's some examination of that, like Tolkien examines this with Arwen, Right. That she lingers after her husband, but very rarely is it from the point of view of the longer lived character, like they're often in a party with humans or what have you, and that it's the humans that are the main characters. And I was like, I want to explore what it would be like, Right. To be someone who ages more slowly and to be part of this culture that is that watches the humans you care about grow old and die. Right. And so I came up with this kernel of an idea of I have this little girl who's the daughter of the castle cook in this medieval castle. And it's a single mother. Right. She doesn't know who her father is, but she's different than all the other kids. Right. She grows up more slowly. She's more delicate, right. She has these strange ears, right. She has this strange hair. And so she's bullied, right. And victimized for being different. And then, right, the moment when the magic comes out and this changes everything. When she's, you know, she's like, oh, I can do magic, right, Which. Which ties back into who her father is and all these sorts of things. But I wanted to start with that sort of very classic idea and then explore it for a long time. I wanted to kind of live in it and breathe in it and let it settle. Have you at some point, have you watched the Green Mile?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Dave]

So this is, you know, this is this three hour movie set in this. This prison. And one of the reasons it works so well is that you just kind of live there and you get to know the guards and the prisoners. And I wanted to do something like that where I spent a lot of time with some of these characters and in some of these places and build it slowly. And so early on, it's these stories of childhood, you know, being bullied by other kids, wanting to know, you know, why you don't have a father. You know, does he even know you exist? Did he abandon you? You know, did you ruin your mother's life? You know, all of these sorts of things. And then as it grows at every book, the stakes increase, right? And her ability to affect the world increases. And so by the second book, when she's, you know, a teenager and she's 15 and she's visiting the capital city, those are teenager stories, you know, meeting other teenagers, having a first relationship, you know, going to this, you know, like these balls and these masks, getting in fights, starting to understand that the adults around you are politically involved and that there's higher stakes, but that you're not really part of it.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

At least, but you can see the edges of it. Right. And then, you know, as the story builds and we get into the later books, she more and more becomes a powerful player in her own right. And I wanted to play with and examine that progression from a kid all the way up to how do you turn into a formidable adult in these circumstances, in these fantasy worlds? And so this is. This is sort of the core concept around Guildmage.

[Podcast Host]

There's a. There's a personal connection to the idea of age and point of view from the. From someone aging at a different rate. Do you feel comfortable sharing kind of the personal connection you have to the story and the idea as well? Yeah, yeah.

[Dave]

We can talk about this a little bit. I'll be a little careful about what I say, so I don't. Right. So. So my, my son is 10 years old at this point. Right. And he is autistic. Right. And so there is this element that my, certainly my wife has pointed out. Right. She says this, this, some of these things feel like things that have happened to us where in some ways he holds on to being young longer.

[Podcast Host]

Right, right.

[Dave]

That he's so incredibly smart about so many things and he's reading adult books about evolution and, you know, what have you. But when it comes to social, emotional growth and interacting with peers and how he views the world, it often feels like he's three years younger.

[Podcast Host]

Right, right.

[Dave]

And so I think that absolutely did come out in the early portrayals of this character in the first couple of books that she sort of left behind in a lot of ways. One of her earliest best friends grows up and gets married and has kids and is running a business.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

And so she's like, you know, I've been left behind.

[Podcast Host]

What a great perspective. I think that's actually really beautiful. Right. I have, I have two nieces who have autism. And that I, when, when you mentioned to me that, to me in the past, I sat with that for a while and went, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. They, they're just on a, they're just, they're just on a different plane and.

[Dave]

And they're gonna get there.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Oh, they're gonna like. Yeah. Right.

[Dave]

Because I have, I have, I have a ton of friends and co workers and people that are autistic adults.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Right. And they, you know, they adjust. They're wonderful. They're great people. Right. They have careers and etc. Etc. Etc. But sometimes it's like it took a.

[Podcast Host]

Little longer, you know, that's, you know, I just. Thank you, Dave, for sharing that because I think it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful thought to ponder as we read and go through Guildmage, that there's this little seed that's just kind of sitting there germinating in the background. Right. As we read. So.

[Dave]

And there's seeds that come from all sorts of things. Right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

All these little places that you go. And the initial city I had originally thought I was going to put on the seashore. And then I went on vacation with my wife and my son and my in laws and we went to visit her uncle in Colorado. Right. Her aunt. Uncle in Colorado. And so neither one of us had ever been to the Rocky Mountains or anything like that before. And we sort of, like, we loved it. Right. We thought it was beautiful. And so this was happening just as I was making plans for this series. And so we turned it into a mountain town instead. Right. And based it on Colorado. And so that, you know, again, there's all these little gems of things that go into different places.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, I'm going to ask you one more thing. We're going over. I know I'm keeping you a long time, but this is kind of like after school, but I'm not in detention, so. Okay. Okay. You talked to me about the fifth dimension and. Oh, yeah, no one's ever told me about this. I've never heard anybody talk about this again. Another thing that made me just sit with. I had to sit with it for a while and think of it. And you talk about a circle and two feet in the circle. Yeah. Now, I would love for you to unpack this. This will kind of be our closing as we wrap up and. But I just think it's a different perspective that as writers, you can really benefit from, as readers you could benefit from. But the way you unpack this for me in the past, I just want to. I want to touch on it again because I thought it was so powerful, this fifth dimension. Come on.

[Dave]

Yeah. So there's a way of thinking about the idea of multidimensional existence sort of beyond our ability to perceive, right? So we talk about, you know, height, width, depth, et cetera. And this is the three dimensions we're familiar with. And if you think of time as a fourth dimension, right. That we. We move through, but we only move through it in one direction, Right. That we can even. We can comprehend that pretty easily, right? So if we live within this sort of these four dimensions, how could you understand what it would be like for there to be a fifth or a being that exists in five dimensions or six or seven or what have you? But there is kind of a way to think about it, right? So if you imagine, you know, a patch of, like, bare earth and a stick or something that you could draw in it, and you draw a circle in the dirt, and you've got, like, ants, you know, in the circle to them. Going up to the edge of that circle where you've. You've scraped it out is this. This incredible barrier. It's this trench, you know, that's been dug out. And if you stand inside the circle with them, they perceive this enormous thing, right? But really, they're not perceiving much beyond your feet because you exist so far up compared to where they are.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Dave]

And the fact that you could just step out of the circle over what is to them this insurmountable obstacle. Right. Based on perspective, because you exist going vertically much more than they do. And so if you think of this, you know, like a two dimensional construct, what if you had people, and there's a book called Flatland that did this. Right. If you had people who lived in two dimensions, Right. And everything was on a piece of paper and you drew lines and squiggles and they moved around on this piece of paper, that they would have no idea what happened when a finger came down, you know, or a pen. Because to them, it comes from completely outside of their world. Right. But it's really just someone who has the ability to exist in a dimension that they don't. And so in the Faerie Night trilogy, which is the first series I did. Right. Which is a fantasy series, the. The fairies and the. These other sort of multidimensional creatures are like that compared to humans. And so when humans interact with them, they may appear and disappear, you know, go from one place to another without crossing the intervening space. And to humans, it's like what, you're teleporting, you know, how did you do that? How is that possible? But really, it's just like us walking, you know, pick up a foot and put it down. But if you only perceive the soul of the foot.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

Then it seems like teleporting.

[Podcast Host]

Right. It's almost like a glass bridge. And you're down below looking above people standing on a glass bridge. You have no idea how tall they are.

[Dave]

All you can see is the soles of their feet, shapes of clothing above them. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting.

[Dave]

That's a really fun way to think about that.

[Podcast Host]

That's fascinating. That's really good. I love that.

[Dave]

Thank you.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. No, that when. Yeah. Again, I. I like talking to teachers. You make me think. And that's a good thing. So. Excellent. Yeah, yeah. So, Dave, for people who want to follow you, the pre orders out now for Coral Bay, but there's more coming. Oh, yeah. Where would you like to send everybody? I think there's probably people interested in being part of your community as well and participating. So there's a lot of opportunities. Where would we like to send everybody?

[Dave]

Probably the. The two easiest places to go are Patreon.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Dave]

And Amazon.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Dave]

Right. And so if you. I mean, if you're looking to buy things, you go to Amazon. It's my author page there. And. But if you want to get involved in the community, if the community you want to Go to probably Patreon and that'll get you into discord or the Patreon discussions, things like that.

[Podcast Host]

Excellent. I love your connection with your community. I love that you built in public and that you take us along for the journey and then we can celebrate with you when we. The book comes out. We got it. It's ours. It's. It's great. You've given us a lot of insight, Dave. I really appreciate you.

[Dave]

Thank you. It was wonderful to come on.

[Podcast Host]

Your students are lucky to have you and the fact that you would talk about Princess Bride. I'm gonna audit the class and just drive down there and just hang out for that. Because that'd be.

[Dave]

Drive on down to walk it.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, no problem. I'll just commute. No problem. Right? They're like, who's this old guy Dave in the glass? Yeah.

[Dave]

In the back of the room.

[Podcast Host]

Another Dave.

[Dave]

Yeah, don't worry about it.

[Podcast Host]

He's a Canadian. He's fine. Yeah. Awesome. Dave, thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. I'd love to have you come back in the future. I. There's a lot more I'd like to talk to you about.

[Dave]

Oh, sure, anytime.

[Podcast Host]

Excellent. Great. We'll keep you. Hold you to that. Everyone, you want to meet a great teacher. Well, again, has a fabulous beard and great stories. His stories are as long as his beard.

[Dave]

Oh, I like that.

[Podcast Host]

Then you got. Hey, there you go. The wise sage Dave has been here. And make sure you go check him out. Leave a great review so he can see that on the back end of Amazon. Read his Kindle books to the end and tell 10 people about Dave. That would be really helpful. Dave, thanks so much for doing it.

[Dave]

Thank you for having me.

[Podcast Host]

Hey, thank you so much again for pressing play. As you've heard, great guests on the show and one thing you didn't hear in this conversation is what. What did you notice here? Think about it for a second. That's right. Not a single solitary commercial for a mattress or a supplement or whatever you call it. No. Why? Because we don't want to break up the conversation with commercials. So the fact that you're still here means that you are a fan of the show, I'm assuming. So if you want to help to keep the podcast going and to make. Make me feel really happy, all I really care about is coffee. Okay. I just gotta be honest. I love coffee. I'm drinking one right now. Starting to get cold. I need. I need to warm it up. Helping us with our buy me a coffee link. [e-mail] and also in the show notes. Helps kind of keep the lights on around here. Remember, I'm doing this for free. I. I'm paying for everything. So I would love to have a little coffee donation. You know, even five bucks kind of fills up my cup. And I would love to enjoy a coffee from you. So if you're interested, again, thank you for listening, but you can use our buy me a coffee link and fill up the cup. Thanks for being here.