My story “Fetching Asteroids” is only 300 words, but as a song… oh my god. Just oh my god. I can’t believe it’s real I can make songs like this exist now. I’ve been doing it for the last 2.5 months straight, and I still just can’t really believe it.
The main character in “A Real Stand-Up Guy” is like if Stephen Colbert were a pug dog in the Otters In Space universe. I love him so much. So the song had to get him just right, and, ugh, when he stops singing to say the “I don’t care” line… so perfect.
I wrote the first version of “High School Dogs” in high school and didn’t convert it to a furry story in the Otters In Space universe until 17 years later. So the teenage intensity is truly authentic… and this song heals something deep down inside me.
If you’ve ever wished that The Cutting Edge were actually a catchy song about a cat teaching a large dog to figure skate, well, then, you were more prescient than me. Still, I’m delighted by the song version of my story “Marge the Barge”.
People weren’t sure how I was going to write an Otters In Space story for a dystopia-themed anthology… but much as I love Otters In Space, it was never really a utopia. Anyway the song for “Not All Dogs” desperately needed a 90s sound.
“Chestnut Wish” is the second story I wrote as fictionalized memoir and then converted to a furry story in the Otters In Space universe. Parenting is hard. I’m glad I was able to capture some of those big, overwhelming, crushing feelings in the song.
Look, the song “Ecto-Busters One” is fun. It’s a fun story… but as a song? Oof. I’m so glad that I’ve made it to the part of time-space and my life where I can make songs like this. Because it’s really just about the best thing that’s ever happened.
I wrote “Ecto-Cafe” for a coffee-themed furry anthology, and it was a lot of fun to write. And the song version? Oh my goodness, I think it’s the most fun song I’ve made. It’s so epic and silly. I mean, it’s a ghost-bustin’ dog in a haunted coffee shop!
If you’ve ever wished Doctor Who were actually a catchy 80s song about a time traveling tortoise taking a mouse on grand adventures, then “Tortoise Who” is for you.
I had so much fun with the world-building in “Chrysalis Can Wait,” depicting a planet where wildflowers and camellias are at war and a caterpillar with a time-traveling tortoise must figure out how she fits!
I’m so glad I can listen to it as a song now.
I wrote “Sandbeard the Pirate Otter” shortly after seeing my first full solar eclipse, and it already had a lot of lyrical language that translated easily into a song version.
My story “Dry Skin” is about an amphibian trying to get by in a world built for fuzzy mammals, and it’s another case where I went with a 90s sound for the song. I didn’t realize how much I actually like 90s music until I started making music of my own.
“The Mouse Who Was Born a Bear” was a difficult story to convert to song… I was so careful in writing the story, no sound really felt like it could live up to it. But I’m pretty happy with the quiet, world-weary folk song sound.
My story “Octopus Ex Machina” answers the question, “What if an octopus used to be seven mice and a gerbil?” If that makes no sense to you, then consider listening to the song.
Writing “The Moon Like an Unhatched Egg” was how I coped with a particularly awful week ten years ago. It’s a bit of a wish-fulfillment piece about a certain turkey getting what he deserves, instead of what he cheated for.
I wrote “The Dreaming Arm” when I was feeling useless as a writer, like creating beautiful things was a waste of time and energy. It was my way of trying to argue myself out of that feeling. The song version has a lovely dreamy quality.
My story “Galactic Garden” is a sort of creation myth for the cosmos involving artistic spider-like beings. That’s the kind of song we need more of, right? Mythological arachnids.
The song for “Jumping Jellyfish and Singing Salmon” turned out just as fun as the story, which is an alternate reality fantasy world piece about Kipper, Trugger, and Jenny from Otters In Space… so, you know, pretty fun!