CREATIVE, Eduardo Soliz, Podcasting, PODCASTS, RANDOMIZER9.COM, self publishing, Super-Short Storytime, WORDS, Writing

Super-Short Storytime: “A Runaway Tale”

Welcome to Super-Short Storytime, dear listeners! I am Eduardo Soliz, the author and narrator of the wonderfully weird words that you are about to hear:

Folks that don’t work at home are often envious of those that do. Creative people in particular are often told that they are, quote, ‘very lucky,’ to work from home, but what most people don’t realize is that doing so comes with challenges of it’s own. I call this brief book-writer’s battle: “A Runaway Tale”

The writer sat behind her computer, typing away while her latest novel-in-progress sat next to her keyboard. Her novel, a one hundred and fifty page book, dangled its stubby legs over the edge of her desk and lazily swung them back and forth.

“Just a few more paragraphs to go, and I’m done, right?” The novel asked impatiently.

“Not quite. You’ll be a first draft.” The writer answered.

“Really? What else is there to do?” The novel asked, its curiosity now piqued.

“Let’s see,” the writer said, placing a hand under her chin to think for a moment. “I have to fix grammar and spelling errors, make sure you don’t have any plot holes, fill them in if there are any, cut out any extra exposition that isn’t needed…” The writer started to explain before the novel interrupted her.

“Time out! What’s this about cutting?” The novel said, now clearly agitated. “I think I’m just fine the way I am.”

“Mmm, no.” The writer insisted. “We have a ways to go before you’re done, so calm down and let’s get back to work.”

“You are NOT cutting anything out of me!” The novel cried before jumping off the desk and landing on the floor in between the writer’s feet.

The writer awkwardly reached under her chair with both hands in an attempt to retrieve the novel. “Darn it! Get back here!” She demanded. The novel eluded her grasp and ran across the floor. It looked back and forth, unsure of just where to go, but it was certain that it wanted to get as far away from its creator as it could.

“Will you just relax?” The frustrated writer said. She stood up from her desk while the novel scurried to hide behind a couch. The writer looked about the room briefly before yelling: “It’s part of the writing process!”

The writer heard rustling behind the couch. She tiptoed up to it, being careful to make as little noise as possible.

From behind the couch, the novel nervously blurted out: “Don’t mind me! I’ll just be here holding up the short leg of the couch! You can forget about me, now!” It pleaded.

“Oh no, I’m not going through that again. Not after that one time you hid yourself under my other projects.” The writer replied. She placed both hands on one of the couch’s armrests and shook it in order to frighten the novel.

“Stop that! You’re going to make me sheet myself!” The frightened novel cried.

The writer stopped shaking the couch. She crossed her arms across her chest, impatiently blew a few stray strands of hair from one eye and asked: “Just what is your problem?”

“I’m scared! You’re going to cut me up into little pieces and scatter my pages to the four winds! I’m perfect just the way I am!” The novel insisted.

The author groaned to herself and thought for a moment. She spoke again, but softened her tone in order to coax her wayward work from its hiding place. “Look, you’re a rough draft, sweetie. You’re raw and full of potential, but before we send you to the printer I have to trim you down, tone you up and make you pretty! Every novel goes through this and you know what? They all come out looking better in the end. Trust me, when we’re done, everybody is going love you.” She reassured.

“Well, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound THAT bad…” The novel said thoughtfully. “Okay, let’s do it! Make me awesome!” It cheerfully said before walking out from behind the couch to be picked up by the author.

Yeah, guess I better not tell it about the editor, the author thought to herself with a grin as he carried her now-relieved novel back to her desk.

THE END.

Given that my works are short in nature, I can’t imagine it would be easy to have to chase down a few sheets of paper, Dear Listener. This has been Super-Short Storytime! Visit eduardosoliz.com for more stories and podcasts, and remember: Working from home is still working!

Books, FURRY, fuzzy words, self publishing, WORDS

A “Real” Book

My first paper book: “Fuzzy Words: The Con Fluff Collection,” is now available for purchase on Amazon!

It has always been my goal to create a paper book. The writing problem with doing so is that my short stories are so short that I had to accumulate a pretty good number of them (27 in all) in order to have a book of reasonable length printed.

Naturally, I encountered a bit of a learning curve in publishing something physical. In the digital world, there is no concern about margins and fonts and all of that stuff, because the screen that your book is going to be read on may be of any size and the reader can adjust the text font and text size to their liking. In the print world, you have bleeds and gutters and covers and inches and all sorts of things that need to be done the right way.

Things have certainly changed for the better: Way back when, if you wanted to print a paper book on your own, you had to go through a vanity publisher, which meant paying to have a few hundred (or thousand!) copies printed. This meant that you took a big risk of being stuck with boxes of books that nobody wanted to buy. Thanks to modern print-on-demand technology, paperbacks can be printed as they’re ordered, so just like in the e-book world, your cost of entry is nearly zero, save for the purchase of proof copies.

I gave both CreateSpace and NookPress a try, and ended up going with CreateSpace because of their expanded distribution options. Also their books seemed to be of higher quality and they offered a better discount to authors purchasing their own copies.

A funny thing happened as I showed friends my print proofs; I repeatedly got this ‘so you’re a real writer now’ vibe (and a comment or two) from them. Never mind that I’ve published quite a few digital ones. Oh well, what can you do?

In any event, now that I’ve finished my first one, I can’t wait to do another!

ANIME, Con Talk, PODCASTS

Con Talk 75: San Antonio Public Library Pop Con

Books, BUSINESS, CREATIVE, WORDS, Writing

Working My Way To the Top (of the page)

Bottom, bottom, bottom…

I forget which short story collection I was working on and discussing with a friend, but he posed an interesting question as we were chatting:

Why is your name always at the bottom of your covers? Shouldn’t it be on the top?

While I may not completely produce my own covers anymore (for the better, as you can likely tell) I do place the text atop the artwork. The decision to de-emphasize myself was a conscious one and I did it for a very simple reason:

Nobody knows who I am.

It’s a harsh thing to admit, of course, but that doesn’t make it any less true. If I put “Eduardo Soliz” on the top of a cover, a potential reader might think that the book is about a guy with that name, or they might even think it’s in Spanish. Either way, my name (right now, at least) is not a very big selling point.

Stephen King and James Patterson and those guys, yeah, they can put their names up top because people will recognize then as authors who’s work they enjoy so they’ll be more inclined to pick up a book with their name on top and buy it.

Someday, I’ll be ‘big enough’ to have the nerve to put my name at the top of the page, but until then, I’ll have to play second fiddle to the books themselves.

Then again, maybe that’s how it should be!

CREATIVE, Eduardo Soliz, JUST SAYING, WHISKEY-TANGO-FOXTROT, WORDS, WORK, Writing

Unwritten Anger

As I mentioned previously, I tend to carry a chip on writing my shoulder at work, which can increase or decrease in size depending on the derp that is being thrown my way by customers, coworkers, and the company I work for. I recently had an instance where working on a story during my lunch hour improved my mood and I felt happy throughout the remainder of the day.

It happened again. I got worked up into a lather one morning thanks to a coworker who couldn’t follow simple directions. I reached the point where I had to walk away from my desk because I wanted to hit something or someone. Lunch couldn’t come too soon because doggone it, I needed a break.

I returned to my desk and lunchtime soon arrived without incident. I tapped away on my tablet, looking for some mental respite from the day. I had earbuds on and was listening to music in an attempt to blot out the office noise. As is often the custom, I opened my ‘To Do’ directory and scrolled down the list of unfinished short stories, blog posts, podcast scripts, and book drafts for something to work on. I opened up the short story that I had started before. The words flew from my fingertips and I had a completed first draft by the time lunch was through. As was the case before, I felt better after the fact.

It then occurred to me that I hadn’t written any fiction in quite a few days; I had been spending them formatting “Fuzzy Words” for publication and recording and editing podcasts. I started to wonder: was I more easily upset because I hadn’t worked on any stories in a while? Have I gone from ‘I like to write’ to ‘I need to write?”

WORDS, Writing

The Joy of the Creator

I can be pretty moody at work, depending on how much stupid is being thrown at me from all directions. I would say that my average mood has gone from anger to indifference as of late as I slog through each day’s 8-hour adventure.

There are brief moments of happiness to be found, though, whether its from coworkers’ jokes, a good lunch, or even the occasional not-completely-angry-at-us customer. I was having something of a ‘blah’ day earlier this week when I stopped to have a conversation with one of my cubicle-neighbors. The conversation awoke my muse and I spent my lunch hour starting on writing a short story that was inspired by that conversation.

The story isn’t anything terribly special; it’s supposed to be a quick gag story that I’ll post onto my website. But I enjoyed writing the beginning of that story, so much so that I returned to the office a few minutes late. I spent the remainder of that afternoon in the office in a really good mood. I was happy not only because of the work I had done, but also at the anticipation of finishing that story. Thoughts of dialogue and plot points popped into my head on occasion.

I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t written anything in awhile, but that one hour or so of writing made me feel wonderful, even if it I wasn’t something terribly important. There’s just something about creating something new that is very satisfying, second only to the euphoria of finishing it!

Eduardo Soliz, FURRY, WORDS, Writing

Rewriting History

writing I previously mused about the universes my stories take place in. There, I mentioned that the majority of my stories did not take place in ‘the real world’ (Earth-Prime). Instead, I have a parallel world (Earth-F) that is inhabited by furries but is otherwise similar to our reality, but for the problems that possessing fur, claws, and sharp pointy teeth might introduce.

I recently found myself writing two stories that inched a bit closer to the real world than usual and went through the trouble of making sure they didn’t get too far away from their real-life influences.

The first, “Rules of the Game,” was based on the invention of basketball by James Naismith but transposed on to a world where a furry basketball league exists (FBA). While I had the basic outline for the story down, I took it upon myself to research both the real-life events that led to the creation of the game as well as what limited information I could find on the fictional history of the Furry Basketball Association. While I didn’t have to do so, I did the research in the interest of accuracy and I’d like to think the story came out better for it.

Another as-of-yet-unpublished story (“Epiphany”) gives a fictional account of what may have influenced the creation of some well-known characters. I could have simply written the story with no regards for the real events or individuals involved, but I wanted it to make real-world sense even though it doesn’t exactly take place in the real world. Once again, I did my research and I hope that the story stands up to scrutiny.

I might be the only one that cares about such things, but such is the price of having an anal-retentive computer guy brain!

Books, One Sheet Stories, WORDS, Writing

Three Years and Many Words Ago…

On October 27, 2011, I uploaded One Sheet Stories to Amazon.com, which marked the beginning of my adventures in self-publishing. Three years later, I have self-published a total of six e-books to the tubes so far: one non-fiction book and five super-short story collections. My works can be found on Kindle, nook, iTunes, and Kobo.

Like many other creative persons, I hoped that my creations would be well received. While the number of copies of One Sheet Stories that were sold that first year could be counted on one hand (it’s free now), my second book, The Rules of Tech Support, has sold over one hundred copies and was downloaded over four hundred times when I gave it away on Amazon.

One reason I write is in the hope that this endeavor can result in financial independence, but realistically it will take some doing. I have received a small amount of royalties. Not much, but enough for me to let Uncle Sam know, for what that’s worth. There are definitely no plans for me to quit my day job anytime soon. I have, however, gained knowledge from my successes and failures that I have begun to share with others.

I like to think that my writing has improved over those three years; the fact that I give away some of my earliest works for free now is a reflection on how rough some of those early stories were. As evidenced by the slow start, I may have been a bit premature in attempting to sell my works. If nothing else, I learned that I needed to package at least seven stories to justify the ninety-nine cent price tag. Lessons learned and all that.

My attempts to sell paper copies of my books were met with what I can only describe as a fantastic level of indifference (insert lamenting about how ‘nobody reads anymore’ here), but the opportunity to spread the word about my work and talk to like-minded individuals have made up for the lack of financial success. Luckily the financial costs are low and the potential for higher levels of success are there, so I press on.

Of course, there are things that I still need to work on; length in particular is something that still vexes me. I have at least one idea for a novella that I would like to complete someday, but only a few partially finished chapters sit unloved on my hard drive. I have also taken a few tentative steps towards writing different kinds of stories, but the majority of my works are still humorous (I hope). Marketing is another challenge that I am looking forward to addressing in the future.

As I enter my fourth year of being a self-published author, I can only hope that as I write and publish more, I sell more and who knows, maybe someday I will get to really say ‘take this job and shove it’ for good. As my fourth year begins, I have two follow-ups to The Rules of Tech Support in the works as well as another science fiction collection and of course, more furry stories.

Writing and publishing has been an adventure for me so far, and I hope that you (and many others!) will join me on what should be a fun ride in the years ahead. Thanks for reading.

Books, Con Fluff 1, Con Fluff 2, CREATIVE, FlipSide Stories, FURRY, JUST SAYING, Nine to Five Lives, One Sheet Stories, Seven Super-Short Sci-Fi Stories, WORDS, Writing

Earth-Mine

writing
When I started writing fiction, I didn’t give much thought into linking my short stories together or having them take place in a shared universe. As time went on, I did find myself putting some of them into a few distinct worlds:

“Earth Prime” is our home-sweet-dimension, and given that the majority of my stories involve some combination of furries, super-science, and fantasy, I don’t know that many of them actually take place here. I do have a few sci-fi stories that take place ‘twenty minutes into the future,’ that is, near enough for us to relate to them (I hope!).

“Earth-F” is a parallel version of our world inhabited by furries. These stories tend to be humorous and I like to ‘Hanna-Barbera’ the names in those stories. For example, in a story that took place in a television studio, an older character referred to old-time TV stars such as “Mewcille Ball” and “Droopy Sales.” I know, I know!

On “Earth H-minus” mankind has destroyed itself in what becomes known as the “Final War” and after their intelligence has been increased due to increased mutations, the furries eventually inherit the Earth. One as-yet unpublished story takes places in a period where humans and furries coexist, though not harmoniously. Society is eventually rebuilt by the furries but I haven’t quite hammered out the predator/prey relationship rules yet or if the humans were completely eradicated. Yeah, its not exactly a happy place.

The ‘Enchanted Forest’ stories obviously happen in a fantasy world, but I haven’t done much there (like come up with a clever name) though it has been established that magic does have limits. For now, anyway.

I should probably sit down and figure out just where all my stories fit, because inevitably some reader out there is going to try to ‘connect the dots’ and completely screw it up. Well, assuming I haven’t already! 😀

Click here if you’d like to read some of those stories!

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Create or Consume?

I remember reading an interview with an actor that was on a popular TV show many years ago. In the interview, he mentioned that he had never seen the show that he worked on and went on to say that he didn’t watch much television at all, for that matter. This struck me as a little odd, because at the time, I thought that seeing yourself on TV would be the Coolest Thing Ever.

I have noticed that something interesting has happened as I have started to use my creativity more these past few years. I now spend more time writing and working on podcasts and not only have less time to watch TV and play games, but less desire to do so. I’m creating more and watching and playing less. While I suppose it is good to be making things, part of me wonders if it has to come at the cost of consuming it.

Sure, the tramautic few months I spent working for a cable company helped kill my desire to watch television, but that’s neither here nor there.

Eduardo Soliz

IT Guy, short story author, podcaster, and furry!

Tag Archives: Writing