Zeinab Alayan's Blog, page 11

It all comes down to the story.

The old man sits there, all tweed and spectacles and proper. He has a musty smell about him and a papery quality to his skin; he looks like he might tear if you manhandle him. He rubs his arm, upsetting his smoking jacket, revealing words tattooed across his forearm just under the sleeve. He looks at the youngster across from him, and a crinkly smile touches his lips.

The youngster, in turn, regards him coolly and with a little bit of disdain. With his immaculate black suit, his smooth skin, h...

I see dead people.

Well… not exactly, but I watchedThe Sixth Sensethe other day and that’s the first title that came to mind. The movie reminded me of a little incident that happened to me when I was but a wee eight-year-old. Most people don’t believe me when I retell it, but it’s the kind of incident that you wouldn’t forget about in a hurry.

Today’s daily prompt asks us to write an “adventure” and let the readers guess the ending. This incident does qualify as somewhat of an adventure, especially as it has sup...

A room I’ve always dreamed of.

Kids usually dream of owning big houses with swimming pools when they grow up, occupying awesome jobs like astronauts and firefighters and detectives, they dream of the day when they’d have a swimming pool in their backyard which they could jump into from their bedroom window… so compared to them, I’m definitely a little under-ambitious. Well okay I still would like that swimming pool.

I, however, the little bookworm that I was, always dreamed of having my own personal library. Along the years...

The greatest thing since sliced bread.

I love bread as much as the next person, though I admit I don’t see why it should set the bar for all inventions from 1928 until now. There have been many great inventions since that year (such as mobile phones and the internet!), but to be fair to sliced bread, I’m going to stick to the food category. So let’s step back through time – there’s a nasty war between 1939 and 1945 that you might want to avoid – and see what other fantastic foods have been invented since sliced bread.

In 1940, the...

Q & A with the lovely Dianne Gray, author of The Eleventh Question!

As part of my resolution to read more indie novels this year, I picked up The Eleventh Question by fellow blogger, Dianne Gray, and did not regret it once. A short and easy read, this novel tells the story of Arista, a teenager with a less-than-idea living situation, who goes through the eleven stages of enlightenment through a series of events that test her and make her ponder the true meaning of life, while in the background a Seer and her apprentice observe her and go through a journey of...

Jack did not have to die!

The other day as I sat watching the final scenes of Titanicwith my mum and sister, I couldn’t help but think, “Did Jack really have to die?” It has been proven on Mythbusters that, technically, Jack could’ve survived, that both he and Rose could’ve fitted quite easily on that wooden board. When I voiced my indignation (amid tears, mind you), my mother said, “Well, it’s what the director wanted.”Or rather… it was written in the script that Jack dies, so I guess it’s what the writer wanted.

I’m...

Would you like coffee with your sugar?

The common impression is that the writers’ drink of choice is coffee, and that is probably true; surveys do show that writers/editors are among the top coffee consumers. I don’t know what that says about writers as a whole, haha… that we’re all sleep-deprived, perhaps?One Brian Andreas put it,“I don’t really like coffee, she said, but I don’t really like it when my head hits my desk when I fall asleep either.”

I think I’d be the only one left standing in my work place if that should ever happe...

A Reader’s Resolutions

I’m not one for resolutions. I’ve noticed that I always fail to meet them, whether it is to go to bed early, exercise more, cut down on chocolate (perish that thought!) or otherwise. However, I know I can’t go wrong if I’m doing something I enjoy; less chance of failure there. So for 2013, I shall make me some reading resolutions!

1. As has been the case for the last two years, this year I’m going to challenge myself to read a certain amount of books. In 2011 I went with 20 books, last year I...

When characters leap off the pages. Literally.

Some authors have this amazing ability to make their characters so real and vivid you feel as if they were sitting in the room with you, telling you their story. I love those characters. I wish I could write them, but I know that’s beyond my current abilities.

There are these characters… and then are those who actually jump out of the pages. I watched Ruby Sparks yesterday. It tells about a writer with a horrible case of Writer’s Block who one day dreamed about a girl called Ruby Sparks and st...

A Year in Reading

According to Goodreads, I have completed 33 books in 2012. While that is not a great number, I’m pleased that I was able to make the time in this extremely hectic year to sit and enjoy a good book, even if for just a few pages at a time. I read some great books, and some not-so-great ones, and ones (well, one in particular) that left a bad taste in my mouth. However, it’s been a good reading year overall, and I will use this opportunity to summarize nearly 12,000 pages into a few words.

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These...