Voices for Voices®

From Tornado to Theme Park Dreams: How Prophetic Novelist Sandy Solis is Changing Culture | Episode 216

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 216

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From Tornado to Theme Park Dreams: How Prophetic Novelist Sandy Solis is Changing Culture | Episode 216

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Sandy Solis never anticipated becoming a novelist. With musical talents and dreams, she thought her creative path would lead toward rock stardom – until what she calls a "Jehovah Sneaky" moment redirected her entire journey. After witnessing a bright young boy reading ghost stories at church, she felt a divine calling to create quality Christian fantasy literature that could compete with mainstream offerings like Harry Potter.

When a tornado devastated her Oklahoma ranch in 2006, Solis began writing her first novel amid the cleanup process. Seven books later, her Spirit Wings series has evolved into a mission to provide young readers with supernatural adventures grounded in biblical truth rather than occult practices. "Most other fiction has all these details about the wizard and his clothing," Solis explains, "but the kingdom of God is up at the forefront. We don't want people attracted to that dark side."

What makes Solis's approach particularly powerful is her natural incorporation of mental health themes throughout her storytelling. Her protagonist deals with significant trauma, offering readers a roadmap for their own healing journeys. This wasn't a calculated decision but emerged organically from the character's circumstances. "It shows people if he can come out and have victory, you can too," she shares, noting that readers have reported spiritual breakthroughs while engaging with her books.

With a background in 3D computer artistry, Solis brings visual precision to her writing process, creating detailed character drawings and maintaining extensive notebooks to track continuity across her expanding series. But her vision extends far beyond books – she dreams of adapting each novel into films, video games, anime, and eventually even a theme park. At 65, Solis approaches these ambitious goals with the clarity that comes from decades of life experience, encouraging listeners to reconnect with their childhood dreams. "When I wake up in the morning, I've got that purpose," she reflects. "I want everybody to have that level 10 life where they're satisfied and won't regret it when they're thinking about retirement."

Ready to explore Christian fantasy that tackles both spiritual warfare and mental health? Find the Spirit Wings series on Amazon or at spiritwingsonline.com, where parents can access guides to help determine age-appropriateness for younger readers.

#FromTornado #ThemeParks #PropheticNovelist #SandySolis #ChangingCulture #Storytelling #FictionToFact #SocialImpact #CreativeVision #InspirationalWomen #LiteraryInfluence #EntrepreneurialSpirit #BreakingBoundaries #CultureShifters #ArtOfStorytelling

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Justin Alan Hayes:

Welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. Your host and founder of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes. Thank you for joining us. We are in 53 countries, 608 cities just counted, went into the analytics, and that's just really on the audio side, so the video puts us even greater. So we're grateful to be able to bring information, content, individuals, to you and to help bring information that you may not be aware of, and we are. Our goal is to be uplifting and and bring people with us and and to give them this, this platform, and this episode is like all the the previous 215 episodes in our catalog. We're we're joined by a fantastic guest, was able to network with a mutual colleague, friend, and just excited to be able to do this. So I'm going to give some of her bio info and then we'll get started kind of in a timeline of how she got started, and then we're going to do two episodes and then the second one we'll really dive into what's going on now. What's going on, what are her thoughts on the future, because she is like I am and many others she's dreaming big and wants to do big things and help people. So let's jump right in.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Our guest today, as you can see, is author Sandy Salas. She is a native of Colorado that is now living in green country, oklahoma. She's a 3D computer artist and lives on the family ranch. She's married with one daughter. She's a longtime student of the Bible and eschatology. Sandy has blogs and animation videos and you can reach out. Subscribe to her at Bible Rock. So B-I-B-L-E-R-O-C-K. No spaces altogether.

Justin Alan Hayes:

She learned that there are many types and shadows in her book. In her book so, if we talk about character-wise, for example, jesse with no coat symbolizes no prayer hovering. It's her vision to give an option to and I love this give an option to the Harry Potter books and the like with that quality Christian content. And she also desires to make each book in the Spirit Wing series into full-length motion pictures, video games and other supporting products, and a theme park is also listed on her list of to-dos. Companion anime color books are also out for each book in the series and she feels that she is called to promote the kingdom of God with all her resources, and you can find more information in her books at spiritwingsonlinecom.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Their books are on amazoncom as paperbacks, cardbacks and Kindle editions, and Audible has book one available and as there's only so many minutes and hours in a day, that takes a minute to put those together in an audio format. So the rest are for forthcoming all right. So we are excited to be joined by prophetic novelist sandy solace. So, sandy, thank you for joining us on this episode justin, it's great to be on.

Sandy Solis:

Voices for voices. I'm excited to be here and and to dialogue with you. What's what's? You know my passion Voices for Voices. I'm excited to be here and to dialogue with you.

Justin Alan Hayes:

What's my passion? Yeah, for our viewers and listeners who don't know you and don't know the work that you do in depth. How did the journey of wanting to be a creator, be an author, uh come about? Was that something at a young age that you, you, you felt that was something you wanted to try? Uh, just how did you? How did you come into, uh, that kind of creative mindset? It's a wild journey.

Sandy Solis:

Um, I call it Jehovah sneaky wild journey, I call it Jehovah's Sneaky. I always knew I wanted to be part of, like a pop culture. I was into music. I thought I would be maybe a rock and roll star or, you know, write and sing because I do write and play guitar and stuff and so that was my focus. You know, I'm going to go in the kingdom and that, and then there was a seed, I guess, inside me I would doodle this. There was a seed, I guess, inside me I would doodle this character's face.

Sandy Solis:

And at a certain well, much later in life, I was in church and I saw a very brilliant young boy carrying a ghost storybook and at that moment I felt like he needs a good, high quality fantasy book. And the Lord said you're going to write it. I said, ooh, I should have paid more attention in English class. So that was where it started. We had a tornado tornado on the ranch, I think 2006 or seven, and I began writing the book while we were cleaning up the devastation here on the ranch when that tornado ran through and it turned into one book, two books, three books and now we're at seven and I expect maybe a total of 10 young adult fantasy books that in some way compete with the genre of Harry Potter, but it talks about the supernatural in a godly biblical sense.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, in a godly, biblical sense, yeah, and I think having healthy alternatives to some of the secular options that are out is a good thing, and not as many people know about that as they should. They should have that option, and so we're hoping that, and we know that this episode, as well as the second episode, is going to reach a lot of people in a lot of different areas, a lot of different demographics that may not have known that, and to know that they're able to find that as an option. When it comes to the actual writing process, what is what is? What is that like? Do you envision like the whole, uh host of events? Uh, not not obviously at once, but uh, or do you do like section at a time? Or just how does that even work?

Sandy Solis:

Yeah, it's kind of linear with me. I mean I'm not like the guys that can write the outline and this is the plot and this is the outcome. I go one chapter at a time. I don't know what's going to happen. Sometimes I'll reference something from three books ago oh, that's what that means and throw that meaning in there, and so it's like with my mind sometimes the way things develop, because I partner with a godhead and it's just like this is so fun and and it's so amazing how it comes out and it really the whole series uh, has a kind of a running theme, more than one, but one is to deal with trauma and mental health, as the main character deals with trauma and it's so. It it shows people, you know, if he can come out and have victory, you can too. So it's really good for people who are struggling and and in this day, you know, there's a lot of craziness so this is like a good quiet.

Justin Alan Hayes:

I mean there's a lot going on, but it's a good place mentally and for people that are dealing with traumatic things how the organization Voices for Voices even came about was when I hit kind of rock bottom mentally and found myself in psych ward for five days and there are just so many things on my mind I wasn't dealing with them and finally I voluntarily admitted myself, voluntarily admit myself and uh, and so it's. It's really a hard to for you know, to talk about their, you know, personal type type of things, especially when you know there's a lot of people watching and and listening. So the fact that you're, you're building that in into your, uh, your creative content, I think is is very, it's, it's great and it also will hit the individuals that potentially are going through something or they know somebody that that has, and I I think that that that is a great kind of layer on top of the plot and the storyline that you have. So thank you for kind of delving into that too, because there are major depression, generalized anxiety, adhd, all the above.

Justin Alan Hayes:

And so the fact that you're covering that is awesome, so thank you for that. From a member of that community, I guess how did you decide to start including trauma and mental health? Trauma, mental health is there friends, or just what we're seeing in the world going on? That gave you that idea Like, yeah, I should include that.

Sandy Solis:

It came organically just through the first couple of paragraphs dealing with this young man and where he was at and the things he was handling in his young life. So it's like God just inputted it from the get go.

Justin Alan Hayes:

This is where we're starting and so, yeah, it was organic, it was not intentional, but it made for a beautiful story excuse me, yeah, and really you know talking about the, you know the whole person, uh is, is good and to uh, sometimes we don't. We don't think we're having the as big of impact as we think we are, or that we think we should. That we look at certain numbers and we're like, oh, you want this to be higher and uh, and what I've I I should have found, found it last year and and as we started kicking off the, the tv show and podcast is that we're reaching so many people that we don't even know about and the analytics and boy, privacy and all that is set up, that we're not really capturing every single person that's viewing and listening. We're capturing a lot, but we've had feedback from a wide range of people. I'm like, wait a minute, I never saw your city, your, your town, on our analytics and, and here they're talking about specific episodes and how it it's, uh, it's good to.

Justin Alan Hayes:

You know, talk about the, the hard subjects, and so the fact that, uh, we, we are reaching so many people, it's, it's it's it's kind of a daunting task. It's kind of like what you think about at the beginning of I want to reach all the people across the entire world and, like with the Harry Potter series, so many people have bought into that and across the world. And so by you bringing that alternative and I, I just love the fact that you're you're dreaming, but you're also going after them and and I think sometimes that gets lost in translation with a lot of people where it's easy to say, oh, I want to do this. Well, you know, whether it's financial resources or whatever you know, it kind of comes in the way. It's like well, I can't do that right now, so I'm just going to put that on the back burner and then I'm just going to keep doing what society is wanting us to do. Yeah, as far as are you, I say, are you a perfectionist when you're writing or editing, like, how does that work?

Sandy Solis:

well, it's definitely a process and I hate formatting the books, but, uh, you know, after eight I think I've kind of got it, but it will test my inner sanctification, you know, oh, can the page numbers just disappeared? Um, it's a skill and it develops and and can go to YouTube. How do I get the caption? You know and and and and, mess with stuff, and I do get people to come and proofread for me and I hate typos. If I find a typo or something, okay, I got to go read, submit the book and get it correct. But yeah, it's, it's quite a process and it's just. But yeah, it's quite a process and it's just. I just dig in day by day and see how it develops and it's just been quite a journey.

Sandy Solis:

So, but yeah, everybody is hungry for like the supernatural and I try to make my angels and the kingdom of God creatures much more interesting than the dark side. You know most other fiction, you know they got these, all these details about the wizard and his clothing and blah, blah, blah. But you know the kingdom of god is up the forefront and and and we don't want people attracted to that dark side. You know we're seeing a lot of industries right now where people try to get ahead by looking to dark things, and you know the occultic practices. So they need to know the kingdom of god and the hope and the joy that it represents, and especially the last days. Everybody don't want to lose the last days and antichrist the beast.

Sandy Solis:

So these kids are walking through the book of revelations and which is a scary subject for me to deal with, you know, because there's seven different. You know at least versions of how things happen, but roughly they do go through and it takes a scariness out of it and it shows, you know, the believers have victory, you know, and that God is with them, never leaves them, even through that one period that you know that everybody's scared to talk about and this mysterious and daniel and different place. So it's, it's really good for helping people to find peace in the world we're living in now, how they fit, what their purpose in life is, find their meaning. Like you say, to dream, get their dream and back when you're three years old, go back to that.

Sandy Solis:

What did you want to do, you know, and don't? I just see myself as a dreamer and as a seer, and so I want everyone to have a life that's fulfilling and satisfying and and not just. I made a living. You know I paid the electric bill, you know the goal for the whole thing and I think these books kind of stir people up and promote that kind of thing.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, and everything that kind of comes with writing and putting a book together. The marketing part is pretty tough. There's so many different angles, from getting your name out, getting the series and then, where they can, than just working on a book, completing it. It's a bunch of different aspects that get tied in there to make sure that your content is available for that person that's scrolling and typing in and following.

Sandy Solis:

Yeah, like you said, you know, when you look at the numbers and you want to reach the whole demographic, everybody you know, from here to here, uh, so I'm focusing on young adults between 13 and 30, uh, and you know fantasy readers even better. Uh, most of my fans right now are 50 year old women. But you know, I'll take it. You know who you know it reaches, it's it just it's kind of like harry potter, as far as it can be popular across age groups.

Sandy Solis:

But yeah, um, that's my demographic, uh, and so even like on the books, the subtitle, you know, I try to match, like what the lord of the rings did, and um was the other one where they they, you know, where they relate to the plot line, but in an interesting way. So yeah, and the copy on the back, you know. So I look to like Lord of the Rings, how did they market? How did they even the titles of the books, what was their titles? And so that that helps me, even when I want to make like a advertisement, I'll look at some of the best people's advertisements. What do they look like? What colors did they use? And that inspires me. Ok, that's how I'm going to kind of roughly base mine after.

Sandy Solis:

So, yeah, I definitely go and see what other people are doing and get inspired by that for marketing and I do belong to a Christian business leaders group and that we're marketing together and that's pretty powerful and we can throw ideas off each other. It's really good. Okay, if I change the name of this to this what do you think? No, that don't make sense, that's too confusing, and so brainstorming with other people, that kind of get you and what you're doing, that really helps me a lot. I'm not great with copy, even though I'm a writer. I didn't think I'm a writer, but I am a writer.

Sandy Solis:

I am a young adult fantasy writer so, yeah, it's good to brainstorm. I even have a book club at times with kids and we meet at the library and I'll ask them okay, what did you think of the book, what did you think of the plot? What was your favorite part? You know, and we eat and we have balloons and have like a party thing, so they have. There's all sorts of fun things when you've got the time and the energy to do, to help figure out how to market and and to get feedback on how you put things together. And praying a lot is always a good plan.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, you never can go wrong there yeah uh, so what?

Justin Alan Hayes:

what gets you up in the morning to do what you? You do, uh, on a day-to-day basis and because the the writing process maybe there are there there may be some speed writers out there that can really condense it. It's a period of time, I'm assuming, from when you had the idea, to you start, like you said, chapter by chapter. How do you, I guess, yeah, how do you continue to want to do what you do and then, not knowing how long maybe that might take, and the whole world, we want everything right now. We, we don't want to wait a month or a week or a day yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sandy Solis:

So when I get up in the morning, you know, part of my heart is okay, this is going to change culture. I want to have impact, um, but as far as the daily writing, I'll just get a little idea or a little scene, or, or they say this, or, and when I sit down and start fleshing it out, it just it's like the Holy Spirit is there and it just flows. And then when I run out of ideas, I stop and you know, and there was like two years I didn't write a book. It's like the pattern or the I wanted to do, like the last book, I wanted to get it done at a certain time. I want to write one every year, but if, if my senior partner, you know, he don't say nothing, I don't write nothing. It's just the way it goes. So I am planning on writing book eight and hopefully get it completed this year. But yeah, it's, I'll hear an idea and I'll say it on my phone three in the morning and then I'll get that note out, sit down with a book and see how it fits, and sometimes I have to go back and review what's been going on. So, since you know, having seven books have an outline the ages of the kids.

Sandy Solis:

I have all of these notebooks full of data. I have a character notebook, I have a fax notebook, big old white notebook to keep track of. It's really good to document your stuff. So that helped me. And since I am a 3D graphic artist, I drew all my characters so I could look at those. Oh, her eyes are green, oh, her hair is black, and it helps me. You know, I need to describe the characters, so that helped me a lot in the little things you know to keep things straight. So it's good to write things down, especially if you're doing a series. So it's good to write things down, especially if you're doing a series. So you have one, two, three, four big white notebooks on the desk here that I can refer to and so, yeah, for a series, you really got to be organized and keep things straight. Your fans will tell you OK, so-and-so had a wedding ring on, they weren't married yet. So you know you want to keep things, you know, tight. Yeah.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, how does it feel knowing that you're having the impact, that you are, that you're reaching people, that you know when you're in that writing, that creative, what I'm doing today might be in front of somebody in Brazil or Italy.

Sandy Solis:

Yeah, I was learning as I went along that people that I knew that had read the book. They said, well, when I was reading this I felt like I was getting more closer to God. And another lady said I got deliverance from a wandering spirit reading about the gypsy lady. That got delivered. I got delivered reading about her and so, oh, god's doing stuff, you know. So I can't in my mind, I can't imagine all the things, but as I write the storyline okay, someone's going to relate to this, in fact the main character. He went through a lot of abuses and in the storyline he wrote all of them on a little piece of paper and put them on someone's desk someone important. But I didn't write all of the details because I wanted whoever read the book to put their trauma on that piece of paper too, so they could say well, you know my thing, there's hope for me, and my thing. Does that make sense?

Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, no, the, the that opens up that, yeah, that thought process for the individual, that you don't have to give all that information, you can give enough, and you really help fostering uh thoughts and ideas from the, from the reader. And I I never thought about it like that, but I mean it makes perfect sense. As your, so I was like, oh yeah, but I'm sure it took a little little bit of thought and energy to get to that that point, because it's easy for people to look at the finished product and go, oh, that was easy and yeah, that makes sense, uh, but and and actually creating it, uh, it really. Obviously it takes time, uh, but you're kind of taking things to that next, that next level, that it's not just every single bit of information, like, like you mentioned at the outset, about the exact clothes that the person's wearing. You know you'll give enough information and then that thought can creep not creep up, but come into the, to the reader's mind or the listener to their own life, you know yeah, yeah, I.

Justin Alan Hayes:

I think that I what you're doing is, I mean, it's incredible that I'm finding that being creative can take all kinds of different shapes and sizes. It could be writing and, like you said, you were talking about music and you play guitar, and so that creativeness doesn't just stop at writing, that there's other creative things that you do, and whether it's for self-care or just you want to do it, and I like to play guitar too.

Sandy Solis:

So that's also something that I like to do when I I can. But there's a lot of artists and writers I mean a lot of writers seem. Oh, they play drums too, or you know. There's the creative that goes over into different other medias. It's interesting that creativeness and creative people do multiple. It's pretty cool.

Justin Alan Hayes:

So as we start to transition into the second episode, we'll kind of tease that with. You know the dreams and the goals of the amusement park and video games and you want to see your content, not just show up in books, all kinds of entertainment. Where does that, where do those ideas just come from? Because some people may say, okay, I finished this book, so I'm going to work on the next one in the series. But to actually think outside that box and say, okay, I finished his book, so I'm going to. I'm going to work on the next one in the series. But to actually think outside that box and say, well, you know, this may happen and may not, but I'm going to, I'm going to give it a shot.

Sandy Solis:

Yeah, well, when I was writing the first book, um, there's a storyline about eagles and things in it and and God just began to talk to me about, okay, we're going to do this, okay, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, and he would. He would give me signs and wonders. That just blew my mind, and so he would. He whispered like, yeah, we're going to do movies for every book, and my mind and one night I asked him I want to hear eagle.

Sandy Solis:

I think it was 3 a. You know, eagles are not nocturnal and I hear that sound. And he just said, ok, I'm hearing him, this is real and I'm going to go for it, I'm going to go with the big stuff and, and just, he keeps expanding and expanding because that's his kingdom, it's his resources. You know he's got to fund this thing, fund this thing, and so, uh, it's just a partnership with him and, uh, going for it, and and not being a seer, being a dreamer, you know, that's your imagination. You can visualize what that's going to be like to make a full-length motion picture with a top quality director.

Sandy Solis:

And now, who do I want to play? Jesse, you know, and it's, you know the juice flows, you know, and, and you just, and it just builds and builds, and builds, and, yeah, like the anime world needs some christian content. You know anime is still popular today, uh, and so gotta get into that too. It'd be great to do graphic novels, which which I thought I was doing in the beginning and God turned it into the written word, so I had to turn all my graphics into descriptions, which I could do, because I just look at my little graphic novel, which was terrible, but because the software I used and stuff was very antiquated back then and stuff. So yeah, no, god just transitions things and takes me slowly, otherwise, you know, I'd be collapsed on the floor and unable to breathe if he dumped everything on me at once, you know.

Sandy Solis:

And so the process and the journey is really fun. You know I'm 65 this year and I guess, as you do get into the golden years, you're really productive. You, you know you've developed your different skills, you've got your focus. Hopefully, you've got your identity, who you are, what your calling is, and so when I wake up in the morning, I've got that purpose. It's satisfying and it's enjoyable and you know it's just straight up blast most of the time, even though you know there are the hardcore things you do that are, you know, like hours and hours editing the book and you're, you know I'm so tired of editing, um, but it's a whole. You know, doing the dream and and seeing it come to life and being fulfilled is so satisfying and that's what I want for the readers. I want them to have that level 10 life where they're satisfied and and they won't regret it when they're 65 and thinking about retirement whatever I should have could have would have, you know, I want everybody to go for it.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Great. Uh, we'll come into the end of our time for this episode. Uh, I want to give you an opportunity, uh to uh, you know, share information, how people can find out more about you, about your books, where they can find them, and all that information.

Sandy Solis:

Hopefully maybe we can put a link in your description or somewhere. It's a Linktree link and it shows all five options. But on Amazon you could just type in Sandy Solis, s-o-l-i-s-s books in my series, my color books will all show up there. So that's one place you go and, of course, the website spirit wings onlinecom. That's spirit wings onlinecom. You can go there and you'll see links to other things. There'sa parent guide so people can say you know, I have a, have a little cousin in like starting book five as a Christian. But yeah, there's little things. So you know if you're a homeschooler or you're a mom and dad, you can check everything out for your kids there. So that's a good start.

Justin Alan Hayes:

Great Well, Sandy, thank you so much for joining us on this episode and we look forward to episode two of part two to learn more about you and inspire, keep inspiring and dreaming and show that things are possible when we go after them, I guess.

Sandy Solis:

It's been a real pleasure and a joy, and I just appreciate you letting me be on it and share my passion.

Justin Alan Hayes:

You're welcome and thanks to our viewers, our listeners, for joining us, whether this is your first episode joining us or whether you've been with us from the beginning and you've kept a lookout for all 215 plus episodes we have with a diverse group of individuals from all walks of life, celebrities. Every everyday people walk to life celebrities, everyday people, and the goal is to just share information and hopefully, inspire. So we are going to transition into part two of our conversation with Sandy, so please tune in for that and until next time, please be a voice for you or somebody in need.

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