Quote of the day - Life and motivation

Every day I stumble into something worth sharing with those who have the patience to follow me. The world is full of inspirational quotes, and we read at them, understanding their depth and simplicity.
So here is one:

Life happens every second, and quotes like this one might feel overwhelming. Creating a whole life worth watching at the end of your days is a challenge, and perhaps this is not even what it's supposed to be.

Life is made of idle moments where you take a pause to think, to admire what you have around, what you have achieved and to dream what would you like to do next.

Moments that live for themselves and don't include doing something special. Yet, they make us feel good, and if they can put a smile on our faces, they are fully worth it.

There will be endless times of working on a longer schedule, feeling: "I'm not paid enough to take this shit."

Yet, there will be those times when you do something to be proud of for the years to come.

If you see this as a whole, the life flashing in front of your eyes might be something even boring to see. Moreover, when we look at our past, we might still find something we might have done differently.

For this reason, if one day, my life flashes in front of my eyes the only words I want to be able to describe it would be: "Carpe Diem."

Create something for the future, but don't forget that your life is happening now, and you need to enjoy it at this moment. Don't get too stressed at how it will look like, once you're old or once you will have to look back at what you've done (you will always watch it with a too critical eye).

I guess that the best show worth watching at that time is that you lived your life enjoying every second of it.

You might have not saved the world, or you might not have been a superhero. But you have lived your life, you enjoyed what it brought and built something even only for yourself.

Nobody should ever get too stressed about becoming someone special, we all are in our different ways without trying too hard or trying to be someone else.

Make your day worth living.

Have a great weekend you all!

Change of hat for the Wandering Writer

It's that wonderful time again when the Wandering Writer turns into the Marketing Writer.
Just like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I am going to transform myself, to give you some updated and fresh news.

First of all, I have now a new website.
It had been a lot of work, money and time spent tweaking the way I think it is best. Eventually, this is not even the final version, and with time, it will be improved and updated more frequently. Nevertheless, if you want to drop by and give some hints and suggestions, I would be more than grateful.

CHECK THE NEW WEBSITE

Every week I will change the header's picture updating a Quote of the week.

About the trilogy, I have bundled recently into a box set,  I would like to make some remarks. The novella Deadly Deception - Prelude, has been tweaked one more time and edited. Also, the other books have gone through a screening to fix some minor/medium issues with the dialogues. I must say that those reviews which were not so positive gave me a lot to think and gave me the chance to improve and see my novels with the eyes of those readers. Not being an English native speaker is challenging, but on the other hand, I need to tell those stories I kept in my heart, and that's mostly the reason why I published them.

About my next release I have sent it to my editor, and I plan to have it published by next month. The date is still to be decided also based on my ARC team's schedule.
But stay tuned and keep an eye on my Facebook page/blog/website for the news, as soon I will start releasing some sneak peeks and the cover.

So for this time, I guess it is all, but don't hesitate and contact me for whatever question. I am (almost) always open. LOL

Have a great weekend!

Beware of scammers and crooks

As my grandmother used to say: "to trust is good, not to trust is better."
When I was a child, this sounded to me like something mean to say. Why wouldn't I trust other people?
I thought that as much as I was an honest person, so were other people. 
Oh, the innocence of the age. Quite soon I had to learn that she was right, but not because I needed to believe that people are all evil, and I should protect myself from them. Her teaching was meant to make me think twice before trusting someone's words. 
My father used to say: "Question everything and everybody. Use your brain to understand whether you can trust someone or not."
His invitation was just to push my emotions a bit on the back burner and think rationally before deciding whether to believe what people told me. The message was clear to use my brain with as few biases as possible.
He would include even himself within those not to be trusted. As I grew up, I understood what he meant.

The Internet era brought great advantages to everybody, access to fast information, news from the world in real-time. However, it also increased exponentially the risk to fall in the net of those scammers, attention-seekers, and shady people.

The examples are many, but there was one recently that grabbed the attention of many authors I am in touch with. 
I am talking about a person who back in the years I have friended, and I have also hired as editor, for my second novel.

She took an insane amount of time to do the job (which also needed to be redone by another editor I have hired).
She justified herself telling that she was going through difficult times and had serious health issues. I didn't have any chance to put into practice what my father said, and I trusted her words. She started to put on funding requests to pay for medical treatments. Recalling the teaching of my father and grandmother, I never sent money without proper proof to anyone, so I never participated in her fundraising campaigns. I have my way to do charity, and I stick to that plan.
Now, recently it came out that all her fundraising campaigns were nothing else but a scam. I feel sorry for those who generously sent money, trusting in the honesty of other people who, like her, are abusing of the good heart of those willing to help.

I personally think that people like that, not only abuse of the generosity and goodwill of the others to help, but also cast a shadow of doubt over those who honestly seek help. This is probably the worst consequence of their actions.

It is like laughing at those who really have problems and might need the help of a community around them to get them solved.

I hope that people will understand that scamming is not going to pay, and in the long run, those lies will come to the surface. Maybe there will be someone who will also take legal actions against those scammers. The problem is that many times those belong to fake accounts that are not easily traceable, making it a lost war.

My only advice is, that of taking the wisdom of the elderly people as a treasure and trust, but not trust until you can have tangible proof.

That said, I wish you a great weekend from the (unbelievably) sunny, Helsinki.

It's a new year!

It is for a few years that there is this way of saying "New year, New me."
I have no idea why people should change themselves or whether it is even possible to make drastic changes in the span of one night when to develop the one you are now it took a life.

Regardless of this detail, I am not so much into this fashion, and you will have to deal with the old me, I suppose. Well, old me certainly but with new adventures, new travels, experiences, books, and whatever this new year will be able to bring.
Travelwise, the new year brought some bad news, and my husband and I are trying to figure out a solution for it. The problem is that in December, taking advantage of a discounted deal, we decided to purchase the flight to Egypt and Iraq, via Jordan.
I presume all of you have heard, even by mention, the diplomatic problems caused by the american airstrike at the Bagdad airport. Luckily for us, we are not US citizens, and Finland has neither any affiliation with NATO, so this should make, at least, the granting of the visa easier. Nevertheless, concerns seem reasonable and more than justified in this case.

I know, you might wonder: why in the world we decided to reach Bagdad? Well, the reason, as usual, is to gather knowledge from the direct sources. Iraq has a very interesting heritage and hosts many beautiful historical sites worth the visit, and the risk. The ruins of Babylon are my main target, together with other least known places around. I aim to get inside the culture, history, and possibly to stay alive.
This is not our first journey to conflict areas. So far, the most dangerous place we visited was the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, with a bit of planning and updated information, we had one of our greatest experiences so far. Sierra Leone was another dangerous place, and it really touched my heart in a way I didn't think possible.
I hope we will be able to reach it. The departure is scheduled for May, so four months from now.
Let's keep the fingers crossed.
Concerning my writing career, I am now at the learning point, and I am following an intensive course on advertising. This should not take me too away from the writing process, but it might slow down my social presence. I will try and do my best to be present but time might not be on my side.
Despite this, I plan to be at least punctual with the monthly blog and every news that I need to share.