Zeinab Alayan's Blog, page 14

Writing to Riches

Recently, during a discussion about my book, the subject of royalties and book costs came up. My friend looked taken aback when I told them how much I earn from a sale. They thought that after all my effort and hard work I should earn a lot more than that, but I only smiled politely an assured her that it doesn’t bother me too much.

That’s the way the money goes,
Pop! goes the weasel.

Really, when it comes down to it, one has to decide why they are writing. Is it for the sake of writing alone? O...

Lebanon in a Nutshell

For something different today, I’ve decided to talk about my country – the little place called Lebanon located in the Middle East on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s pretty obscure, and more often than not, when I tell people I’m Lebanese they backtrack and say, “You’re a lesbian?”, upon which I have to pull out a map and show them were Lebanon is.

We really do exist!

Travel brochures will tell you that Lebanon is the Paris of the Middle East, but I’m about to give you the nitty-gritty...

Fairy tales are not so ideal.

A few weeks ago I picked up a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales as I don’t really know how all the stories I grew up started out. I plunged into what I hoped would be an interesting experience and came out with a few realisations: fairy tales are not really as glamorous as they’re portrayed in modern adaptations; they do not always have happy endings; and the main characters aren’t always as heroic as they’re made to appear.

I know one shouldn’t really pick at fairy tales, but I was disappointed… in...

Oh reviews, you tickle me pink!

Reviews are important. There’s no point denying just how much a review affects us, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Even if the review is generally positive, we still find ourselves paying attention to that very last less-than-good remark the reviewer included as an afterthought. The “If only the author had done this, the story would’ve turned out much better”, or “It’s a good book, but [include bad remark here]“.

That said, however, I actually feel surprised whenever a comple...

NaNoWriMo for the Uninitiated

Now that October’s here, many people are waiting eagerly for November. While some scramble to finish up any works in progress, others try to outline their brand new story ideas down to the last detail, or else try to come up with a plot before the first of November. Why? Because NaNoWriMo.

If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, here’s a brief intro:

NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month) is a writing event during which people from all over the world attempt to write at least 50,000 wo...

Happy October!

I love the colours of Autumn. So pretty!
(Photo Credit: WIkipedia)

I’ve been waiting for this month for quite some time, it being the tenth month and all that. October is my favourite month of the whole year, and that’s not only because it’s my birthday month. Why do I like October? Here are some of the reasons:

1. It marks the start of Autumn. No more stickiness and humidity and hot weather. Just cool breezes and yellowing leaves and overall a much, much nicer weather.

2. It’s the time to break...

Look, ma! I’m a sweet blogger!

I recently received the Super Sweet Blog Award from Gail at the Jotter’s Joint, and was tagged by both Karen and Dianne to do the Look Challenge, and Maddie Cochere gave me the Family of Bloggers Award, hence the “ma”. I thought the title was a clever combination of these three things. No? Well, I tried. =[ That said, I would like to thank these lovely ladies for the awards and tags, so… thank you!

Not going to lie, I was pleased when I received the Sweet Blogger Award, if only because it gi...

Oh dear. I wrote like that?

Now that I’ve finished writing The Muse Bunny, I’m faced with something considerably less pleasant than the completion of a novel that has ailed me for quite some time… the dreadful editing process. Or more specifically, the reading-my-novel-and-realising-what-an-awful-writer-I-am process.

Since the writing of this novel spanned more than four years, I’m quite concerned about the differences in style. The way I wrote four years ago differs from the way I write now. Some of my sentence structur...

I did it! I conquered my novel!

I’ve alluded several times to a novel that I’ve been working on for more than four years, a novel about a muse in the shape of an invisible bunny who goes out of his way to destroy writers and other artists. I have often struggled with this novel because I did not know how to end it, but now I can proudly say that, I have finally managed to type “The End” at the bottom of the document.

I finally finished it! Writing the last few paragraphs was excruciating, and I’m pretty sure they’re terrible...

To curse or not to curse, that is the question.

This, I believe, has been a long-standing question in the literary world. Each writer is different in what they like and how they prefer to write. Some avoid cursing altogether, some use it sparingly, some drop the F-bomb every once in a while and some practically drown their books with curse words.

Now I don’t know if I’m a minority or anything, but I try my best to avoid curse words… both in writing and in my personal life. It is very rare for anyone to hear me cursing or saying something le...