A Quick Sketch – because Neil Gaiman say so

You know, sometimes it just happens. You stumble on a quote, some strange connections work in your head and here it is, you find yourself drawing again after too many years.

This is the original quote, from Neil Gaiman:

“The one thing you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. The moment that you feel that just possibly you are walking down the street naked…that’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.”

You don’t have to put the blame on him, of course. It’s about my Pilot V5 and a few minutes of free roaming from some brain cells.

Writing science fiction – more free tools for the trade

In my latest post (here) I’ve suggested a couple free MOOC in order to acquire more knowledge about selected matters, the idea is to keep myself in touch with the latest development of science and to suggest the same to my fellow writers.

This concept may apply in many different fields of writing, like thriller or mystery, and it’s not only about what will happen tomorrow but it’s also about what is going on today – in order to get the feeling of what will happen tomorrow.

Writing science fiction – free tools for the trade

One of the biggest challenges for a writer who wants to write science fiction is to be up-to-date with the most recent developments of real world science, not to mention the constant upgrade of the speculations about the nature of our universe. We all know that a science fiction novel (or whatever format) is not an essay about some peculiar field of science. We also know that without enough scientific (or para-scientific) elements in the story we’re not writing science fiction but some kind of fantasy (that’s not a problem, of course, but we’re talking about sci-fi right now).

Cyber security, once again!

Title screen for the Betty Boop cartoon series. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

All right, I’m a control freak when it comes to cyber security. I know it, you know it too. It’s no big surprise that I’ve just ended my last MOOC for this year and it’s related to this matter.

Once again I’ve used the FutureLearn platform, one of the best places to find free courses, to pick up a two-week course about the basics of cyber security for Small and Medium Enterprises. Yes, it’s about how to raise the awareness and about the understanding of this kind of risks. In the Trump-era the bar for the security has to be raised higher, no need to explain the reasons why.

Cyber security – the need to know more (and more)

Ops, I did it again. I’ve just completed a fairly good MOOC from the FutureLearn platform about Cyber Security, following the golden rule “you don’t know enough”.

Resources for writers – the Grinder

Like it or not, being a freelance writer ain’t easy. The English-speaking market is very competitive and nothing could be taken for granted, even if you got a very positive publication history.

How to easy set up quotations

Thanks to a friend of mine (hello Massimo!)  I’ve stumbled upon a free web service, a site named Quozio.com; what can you with them?

Easy, you can create in a few seconds quotations – from every text source you like to use – and have it on the Internet with a couple of mouse clicks. Not bad, isn’t it? I know, this will not change your life, nor it will give instant money but it may help to add some spice to your web profiles.

Finding an OST – Ghosts Of War

When I write I just need to have some music playing and I like to think about my projects like movies, each one with its distinctive soundtrack. A pity I ain’t a musician, so I’m not in the right condition to create an OST from scratch. Thanks to two good friends of mine, Davide Mana and Lucia Patrizi, I’ve found a very useful service – totally free of charge – to create the right musical companion of my series.

Under A New Sky – Aftermath

Last Sunday I’ve posted the epilogue of my blog novel “Under A New Sky”, that was the end of a journey started this April, the 28th. This novel is a little project of mine but it has been quite useful for me to explore and understand more about my actual limits of developing and writing a story in english.

The Art of War

When it comes to politics or warfare the name of chinese general Sun-Tzu always rise up, a sort of global cultural reference for developing a winning  strategy. As it happen Sun-Tzu’s masterpiece, “The Art of War”, is a worldwide success, translated in more and more languages every year.

A pity that so few really read the book and fewer more understand it.