David Allen Pierce

It’s a bit late to plan any convention trips this year, but I’m thinking about going to LTUE (Life The Universe & Everything) in 2023. I participated in their online version during the pandemic and enjoyed it immensely. Utah seems to be a Mecca for Sci-fi and Fantasy writers – why? My guess is that Brigham Young University has a killer writing program. I heard GEN CON and DragonCon have pretty good writing tracks. Is there another convention I should be considering? My main goals would be meeting readers, writers, and maybe take a few classes about writing and publishing.

Moving Forward, formally known as Tristan, is ready to be published. I’m putting some finishing touches on my online presence before releasing the story. I have been on Twitter for a while and just joined Instagram. Facebook is a bit of a challenge. I’m not a huge fan of their user interface and find it somewhat ancient and clunky. I have thought about Tik Tok and Twitch, but I’m not narcissistic enough to make videos about myself. Twitter is my social presence of choice. I have opened an account to sell books on Kobo. I’ve looked into opening an account on Apple, Google, and Nook. The process is not particularly…

I had Covid so I was not able to see Downton Abbey: A New Era on opening night. The moment I was cleared to rejoin polite society, I headed straight to the theater and saw a matinee showing. For a Thursday, four o’clock showing the theater was quite full. Quite a few mothers and daughters out for the day. It was kind of nice to see families out and about after two years of hiding out in caves. I’m not going to critique the movie other than to say it felt a bit rushed. It could have been twice as long in my opinion. It’s not really the movie’s fault…

Tristan is now called Moving Forward. Now what? Do I go back and change all the Tristan posts to Moving Forward posts?

I haven’t written a thing in months. I completely rewrote my Tristan story based on my line editor’s notes about narration vs narrator and just stopped writing. I needed a break. My mind was full of correct but not correct for me writing advice. I was writing for other writers not for myself or readers. I was always worried about my prose being good enough or industry standard. Every word was judged by whether it would sell or fit into expected genre plot points. I was fixated on form not function. A couple days ago, I started writing again and it felt like the old days when I didn’t know…

A few months back, I said I was going to pay for a line edit. The edit came back a while ago, and I’m not quite sure what to think. I was hoping to get torn to pieces and put back together as new, improved, better writer. That did not happen. My editor suggested changes but not as many as I hoped nor as vicious. I’m going take this as a sign that I’m on the right track. My editor did explain the difference between narration and narrator in a way that I had never considered before. I had always conflated narration with narrator because narrators narrate. Right? Conflating the…

Egads! I just looked at my blogposts and realized that so far, every post begins with the word “I”. Horrendous. This must change.

I don’t know why I like zombies so much. I’m a sucker for zombie. I have paid for zombie books, television shows, movies, comics, and art. My favorite Christmas movie is Anna and the Apocalypse. That’s just not sane. The first few stories I wrote were, you guessed it, zombie stories. For years I’ve had a complete roadmap of a zombie-ravished world in my head that has been aching to get out. I’ve start it, put it off, and start it again. I see Life in the Time of Zombies as a series of short-stories and novels that blend into a world where people are forced to rebuild. I don’t…

I have rewritten the Tristan story several times, and I am at the end of my rope. Each version is slightly different but not functionally better than the version that preceded it. I may have reached the limits of my abilities. I have at least three versions that are perfectly publishable as is, and I don’t have a clue as to which one is best. I’m starting to see why Stephen King limes himself to a first draft, second draft and out the door. I am self taught and do not belong to any writing groups at the present time. The only opinion I have is my own, and I’m…

I finished a rewrite of the zombie story I mentioned in the last post and sent it out to beta readers. If the the beta readers like it, I’ll put some serious work into a publishable draft.