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

Episode 675 - David Niemitz - Writer and Teacher - Guild Mage,  a serial fantasy novel

Writer and teacher David Niemitz joins the show from Connecticut to talk about his dual life in the classroom and on the page, and how both worlds feed each other. He shares how teaching “film as literature” to high school seniors, using stories like Star Wars, The Matrix, Moana and The Princess Bride to explore the Hero’s Journey, keeps him immersed in narrative structure, character arcs, and mythic storytelling. That daily engagement with story craft feeds directly into his own writing.

David explains the practical realities of publishing, contrasting the limited data and delayed royalty statements that come with working through traditional and small publishers with the detailed dashboards and page-read metrics available to indie authors on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing and Kindle Unlimited. He talks frankly about the trade-offs: more support and distribution versus more control and information, and how audio rights and sales data can be even more opaque when handled by audio publishers.

The conversation then dives into his path to becoming an author. A lifelong reader raised in a house full of science fiction and fantasy, David rediscovered his passion for writing when he pursued a creative writing master’s degree while teaching full time and parenting a toddler. That intense season led to his first self-published science fiction novel, set on Europa and grounded in real-world technology and hard science principles. From there, he evolved his craft, ultimately launching Guild Mage, a serial fantasy novel that became his flagship series.

Guild Mage began as serial fiction following Liv, the daughter of a castle cook, who slowly discovers her otherworldly heritage and magical powers over many years. David wanted to explore what it means to age more slowly than those you love, watching human friends grow up, marry, and die while you remain “behind.” He layers in his own experience raising an autistic son, using Liv’s slower social-emotional development and sense of being left out as an emotional core, then gradually raising the stakes as she moves from bullied child to powerful adult in a complex fantasy world.

Community is at the heart of his process. Early chapters of Guild Mage release first on Patreon, where a devoted Discord community offers feedback, catches continuity errors, and even helps shape cover art concepts that his publisher then passes to illustrator Ben Moran. David describes this as “open development” for fiction, heavily influenced by decades of tabletop roleplaying games where he learned to watch what players love, adjust pacing, and keep tension high so no one gets bored.

He also unpacks his hybrid “pantser with prep” approach to plotting using worldbuilding notes, bullet lists, and physical note cards for complex multi-POV battles, while still leaving room for discovery and reader-driven emphasis. 

https://www.facebook.com/p/David-Niemitz-Author-61558007085046/