Something more to W(o)nder about - what about genres?

This week, I am going to discuss what actually to write in your book.
Concerning me, my writing flow starts with an idea, and that can be really whatever. That idea will spark the creativity flame, and I will start to write a story coming up in my mind.
Since a writer should not have any taboos about what to write. Should he or she focus on a particular genre, or should he or she expand her experience to other genres too?
Now, to this question obviously, there is no right and wrong answer, it is all about what you will feel like to write.
If what inspires you is romance or whatever other specific genres, then go on and be blessed by the muse, which inspires you.
However, if you feel like there is more in your sleeves. If you wish to explore other genres, it shouldn't be a problem. Eventually, it can also give you the chance for a wider readership.
Yet, not everything is well under the sun, and writing a multigenre will bring you to a labyrinth in which navigating might become tricky.
In my experience, writing in more than one genre gave me the chance to expand my range of inspiration, improved my storytelling skills, and opened the world to a broader range of creative tools.
The problem comes from the same opportunity. Writing more than one genre offers you the possibility to broaden your readership. At the same time, you need to put extra effort when you create your mailing list, or you market your writing.
To overcome this, when you create an ad to add subscribers to your mailing list, you will need to target those people who are interested in all the genres you intend to write. Certainly, these won't be as many as those coming from one single genre, but they will be your best asset for your promotions and as members to your street team.
Another way is to create several pen names for each genre you want to explore. Be warned, though, this is going to be a lot of work because you will have to create and follow ads and mailing lists for two or more authors.
I am still in the experimental phase of what is going to work better, and I have noticed that there is absolutely no size fits all. One way of promoting your books will not obtain the same results as it did for other authors. My suggestion is to follow what other successful authors have done, repeat, tweak, and modify until you have the method that works for you. It's a creative job, involving passion.
Without passion, nothing is not going to work.
To all the writers, who like myself are working hard to get their place in the spotlight. Don't give up!
Have a great weekend!

Writer's life and social themes

When a writer is going to set him/herself in front of a blank screen, he might already have some ideas about the theme.
Sometimes we are inspired by a piece of news that shocked us. A crime news section, which piqued our interest because of the thoughts it generated in our souls.
Then a plot is born based on that piece of news.

There are many discussions, which appeared on my Facebook feed about what is allowed and what is not allowed in a novel.
Well, here is my point of view.
If your aim is to bring a social issue to the spotlight, because you feel it would generate thoughts, then basically everything is allowed.

Stories of violence, abuse, and similar need to be told, to raise awareness, even if we are writing a novel. The boundary that should not be crossed, in my opinion, is when the writer is no more using the story to provoke thoughts in the readers but makes it an apology to a determined act of violence.

There are many aspects in the making of a novel, and the writer often deals with his/her own demons, which will translate into different characters.
The villain of the story will have his own time to show how evil he can be, but also the reason why he is acting that way.
The duty of the writer, in my opinion, is to offer a full description of the characters, their actions, and their internal struggles. The reader will pick his/her own conclusions and will take his sides, whether the villain was rightly condemned, or was perhaps a victim him/herself.

When I wrote my novel, I tend not to censor my character. There is a reason why the villain is acting the way he/she does. None of those reasons are justified in any of my novels. The villain, and the hero, are there telling their own version of the story. I am just a transcriber of their feelings and their actions.

I generally prefer the reader to draw his own conclusions and take the story as a way to reconsider the people around us.
So, what is your opinion? Do you think there are taboos in writing a novel? Should a writer focus on lighter themes?
Concerning me, I guess my readership already knows the gloomy shades prevailing in my writings.

Nevertheless, as the weekend is here, let's just focus on rest and having fun.
See you next week!

Writer's life and the daunting doubts

Well, certainly being a writer is not the easiest career in the world. All the fancy things you might figure out in your mind about being a writer, most of the time do not have any foundation of truth.
What is true is that there is a big satisfaction the moment you are sending your novel to be published, and it gives a sense of achievement when people start to react and interact with your new release.
Nevertheless, the work required before the manuscript is ready it has nothing to do with glory and inspiration.
For me, as an indie author, it means finding the time to write, researching for the most impossible bits of information. This, to make sure that the novel has solid grounds like you know what you are talking about, which generally, is not.
We gather information on the internet, asking friends, bothering social workers. We ask the colleague's uncle's cousin's friend who, seemingly, might have some knowledge about the topic you are writing about.
We search for the best way to murder someone or the time for a certain poison to have an effect.
Many times the search is stretching for days and weeks before we can actually go on to the next paragraph.
The bright side is that we get a wide, general knowledge about random things we might never use.
Besides this, and the editing, the tweaking, the rewriting processes, there is something that curses the nights of the indie author.
That is the time when we wake up in the middle of the night, after having sent the book to be published. Just when it is too late, and the next time we will be able to make any correction to the manuscript it arrives within 72 hours.

The daunting doubt.

"Were those twenty times I have been reading it through enough?"
The little nagging voice, during your sleep, will start whispering:
"What about that sentence? Are you sure it was good enough?"
"And have you checked for this kind of consistency?"
"Did you remember to put this edit?"
"Have you uploaded the right version or the unedited one?"
At that point, the poor author has completely lost the sleep and will go checking everything spending the whole night re-reading the version uploaded.
And if you think this is going to be all, think twice. The doubt will get back as soon as the first review arrives, a few positive reviews, and your heartbeat return to the normal pace, the blood pressure is getting normal, and the little nagging voice calms down.
Then one, not so positive, review.
All hell breaks loose, and the confidence gathered crashes down.
The little nagging voice starts screaming: "TOLD YA!"
And it will start an endless process to re-re-re-read and tweak one more,
ending up into a frustrating search for perfection, which will never arrive.

This, my dear friends, is the glamorous life of a writer, or better of an indie author.
With all the best intentions to spend a relaxing weekend, I wish you a great one.
Paula

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.