Zeinab Alayan's Blog

It took me having a legit panic attack to know I’ve been writing them all wrong.

“I had a major panic attack.” This is a phrase people throw around too lightly, when they’re under a lot of pressure, or even when they’re just a tiny bit stressed… myself included. I recently finished writing a book where my main character constantly suffers from panic attacks, and I thought if I read enough… Continue reading It took me having a legit panic attack to know I’ve been writing them allwrong.

On Research and Writing

Since my novel has an alternative history theme, it's almost as if I'm writing fanfiction of the real world. Actually, it's exactly like that. The "world", key players, main events and settings are all there... and I'm just tossing in my own spin and hoping it sticks. 

I finished a book!

And it’s only taken me two years, two months and three days. Well… seven years and nine months if you count the last book I actually finished writing, which incidentally never got to see the light of day. It’s no secret that I’ve been struggling with writing. I thought I’d have more time to write… Continue reading I finished a book!

I haven’t published anything in 6 years.

And it’s daunting. Every year I say, “Okay. This is it. This is the year I publish my second book.” But I can’t even finish a second book. All my manuscripts are scattered around me, at 50%, 25%, 75%, 40% and 20%, and it’s like a big pile of laundry where I don’t know if […]

That time I jumped out of a plane…

I turned on 29 on Monday, and like any other normal person, I celebrated this act of “leveling up“; however, unlike normal people, I did so by jumping out of a plane. That’s actually what I told my tandem instructor – Nick – when he asked me why I’m attempting skydiving on that day – […]

Revisiting the Swearing Question

Five years ago I wrote a post about how I always avoid profanities in fiction, declaring my stance against including swear words and sex scenes in my books. To begin with, let me just say I’m still fixed upon the non-inclusion of sex (except maybe in fade-to-black-situations), but recently I’ve found myself budging when it […]

On Muslim Women’s Day, let’s just remember they’re human too.

So apparently today is the first Muslim Women’s Day ever. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that until I clicked on the trending hashtag on Twitter, and then I was promptly disgusted. There are so many misconceptions, so many views depicting Muslim women as beaten-down creatures that are basically slaves to men, so much sarcasm […]

Sweet Snapshot Sunday #6 – The Italian Edition

If you’ve ever been to Italy, you know there are temptations around every corner. All the restaurants and bistros look supremely inviting, and my friends and I had to resist stopping for a bite at each one. Of course, when it came to dessert… well, that’s a completely different story. The one thing I wanted […]

2016 in Reading

For the second year in a row, I was unable to complete my Goodreads Reading Challenge. Even though I’d lowered my goal instead of going higher – as is customary for me – I just did not have the time to get to all the books I wanted to read. I tried to do too […]

In Defence of 2016

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have probably heard some (or many) people complaining about the trainwreck that was 2016. Many famous people died, Brexit happened, Donald Trump got elected President, we’ve had a number of terrorist attacks and a coup in Turkey, etc. And yeah, sure, these are all bad things, but […]