This is a good moment for me. I’ve got work to do, lots of it – 12 hours per day until September if I’m lucky, to cover all the contracts I signed.
My stories are selling reasonably well.
I even got an invitation to participate in an SF anthology with a number of other Italian writers, all of them much more popular than I am. I’m thinking about it.
My Patreon is growing, slowly but steadily (thank you guys!)
And there’s money in the bank.
Not a fortune, but enough to give me some breathing space, say two months without panic attacks and bill anxieties.

And in exactly one week I’ll be 52.
Well beyond the halfway point, sailing uncharted waters, but reasonably happy.

For this reason when the Facebook pop-up … well, popped up and suggested I do a fundraiser for my birthday, I thought, why not?
I can’t donate much, but I have a lot of contacts and friends and followers.
I can’t ask for money to any one of them – they already buy my books, support me on Patreon…
I can’t ask.

But there’s nothing wrong with dropping a rock in the pond, and see if the ripples cause some interesting effect.

My charity of choice is The Ocean Cleanup, a non profit organization developing new technologies to clean the oceans from the plastic waste we dropped in.

I chose this one because I am a failed oceanographer, I love sea stories and undersea mysteries, and I wrote a few stories in the past that deal with the sea.
And because the pollution of our oceans is a global concern that touches a global audience – and I have friends and contacts everywhere.

So, in the next two weeks I’ll try and raise 200 euros for The Ocean Cleanup.
A pretty small sum, you may say, and I agree.
A drop in the ocean.
But as that guy said, the ocean is made of drops, isn’t it?

I’ll keep you posted about the results.
Meanwhile, if you feel like, spread the word.