About

The Short Version

Paulo da Silva is Portuguese, was raised in South Africa, lives in Germany, and is often found loitering near second-hand bookstores in the UK. He is a software developer by profession. Occasionally he complains about a writer's woes at authorpaulo.blogspot.com.

The Long Version

I started writing in August, 2013.

I started writing "seriously" in March or so, 2016.

Between those two times I sold my soul to self-publishing. I made some money (not much, not enough to sell a soul for - is there ever a high enough price?), got good reviews, got bad reviews, wrote under four or six pseudonyms / heteronyms (I lost count). Garnered some fans.

Long story. Backstory.

I started writing because I was broke, thought I would "make it big" with my first shot out the gates.

Haha - joke's on me.

Well, while trying to "make my fortune," I fell in love with writing itself, quit the self-publishing swill, decided to actually learn something about language and words, started chugging away at the "old fashioned" route, writing short stories, trying to break into the market.

I like the old fashioned route. It's humbling.

After a while, form rejections became personalized rejections, became rewrite requests, became my first-ever sale.

This is where we're at now. June, 2016.

Fingers crossed that the first-ever sale will become second-ever, third, and then a novel...

To the stars, as they say.

Random Facts

Paulo is my second name. Let's stick with it.

I'm Luso-South African (which basically means I'm of Portuguese heritage, born and raised in South Africa.) I speak English and Portuguese. 

I live in Germany (long story short: I fell in love, married a German, lived happily ever after.)

I'm currently a software developer, although other jobs I've had include:

• Vitamin salesman (telesales)
• Mural painter (that went really, really badly)
• Waiter / Server
• Data inputter (those were tough days, tough days)
• Assistant to a personal fitness trainer

I don't own any cats. Although I did once. Her name was Fluffy.