Zeinab Alayan's Blog, page 15

Oh those seductive plot bunnies!

Plot bunnies can be quite tempting. You would be sitting there, working on your WIP when suddenly, “Ding! Ding! Ding! You’ve got a new plot!” Try as you might, you will not be able to ignore that call. It will keep bothering you and dancing around your head until you throw up your arms in frustration and admit defeat. You will scramble around for a scrap of paper or a pencil and frantically jot down anything you can remember.

I’ve been struggling with that lately. I know I have to learn to be...

Monday Blues (and other things)

I dislike Mondays. I don’t see what’s good about a day that tears you away from weekend heaven, a weekend I spent relaxing, watching great movies, reading and writing, eating all sorts of comfort food (pizza, pasta, tuna salad) and following an awesome chocolate mousse recipe… while creating a mess out of the kitchen. I do recommend it though! It’s simple and quite yummy.

It is with a heavy heart that I dragged myself out of bed (not before I pressed the Snooze button a dozen times) this morni...

Reading Habits

I’m a pretty avid reader, and I always try to get my hands on as many books as possible. Some I devour, some I couldn’t wait to finish reading (and not always in a good way). I can’t really tell you how many books and stories I’ve read, but I can tell you what habits I’ve developed along the years.

During the boring classes in school, I would place a book on my lap and read a bit when the teacher wasn’t looking. Sometimes I would also hide a paperback inside the classics they required us to...

International Chocolate Day!

“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”

- Charles M. Schulz.

This is going to sound bad on my permanent record as a chocoholic, but I actually had absolutely no idea September 13 is International Chocolate Day. In honour of this day, I thought I could maybe gush a little bit about chocolate and share some pictures! International Chocolate Day cannot go unnoticed!

I’m not going to give any history lesson about the origins of chocolate, rather, I thought some fun...

We’re just as published as you are.

Today I came across a post stating that self-published writers can’t really say that they’re published, because self-publishing is so “easy” and doesn’t require the same amount of work that goes into traditional publishing, and only writers with books published by traditional publishing houses can ever have the “PUBLISHED” label slapped onto their foreheads. As a self-published writer, I have to say that I was a bit miffed (okay I was more than a bit miffed) and indignant. To think that all t...

All the good ones are taken!

Have you ever had an idea, dwelled too much upon it and got excited about starting it, only to find that someone already beat you it? It could be anything… a book idea, a paper or even a blog post. It feels like all the good ones are always taken, and you worry that if you try to recycle the idea and adapt it in your own way, you may get called out and criticized by your peers. Worse, you can be accused of plagiarism, and we definitely don’t want that. Once a plagiarist, always a plagiarist…...

I’m not just a writer.

I’ve noticed that among all the blogs I come across and the bloggers I interact with, people define themselves as writers. Sure writing might be the skill we’re all most proud of, but I’m sure there are other things too by which we can defined. Let’s take me for example, I’ve been writing since I was five or six, and I like to think I’m good at it… but it’s not all I can do!

I’m a foodie. I love trying out new things when it comes to food. When I go to dine somewhere I try to pick a different...

Is all publicity good?

All publicity is good publicity.

I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase often. The argument is that any kind of publicity that draws attention to the person or event or what-have-you is good, regardless of whether it’s something scandalous or something actually good. I find myself in disagreement with this.

I would only want to be known for good things. I don’t want people to be interested in me or my book just because I did something really bad or aggravated a lot of people with my words and antics...

The Sock Puppets of the Literary World

There has been a lot of talk lately about a number of sock puppets that have been infiltrating Amazon and other book sites near you. To those who haven’t heard, the situation is basically as such: a number of authors including R.J. Ellory, Sam Millar, John Locke and Stephen Leather have been creating fake accounts (a.k.a. sock puppets) to give themselves glowing 5-star reviews, while also bashing some other authors along the way, or else offering payment in exchange for positive reviews.

There...

On Cheese and Writing.

I’m not talking about actual cheese here – though I did have a yummy grilled cheese sandwich this morning – but rather the things that make us go, “God that’s cheesy.” They’re a common occurrence in romance movies, though they do slip in occasionally in other kinds of movies; they’re not limited to sweet moments of unconditional love. A speech or a fighting scene or even a gory scene from a horror movie can be cheesy. But of course it’s not limited to movies, cheesiness is something that worr...