What If There’s Nothing Mixtape/Playlist!

–>Apple Music Link! <–

–>Spotify Link!<–

What is the playlist?

Instead of traditional chapters and chapter titles in the book What If There’s Nothing?, the book is separated into tracks. For example, Track One is Smile Like You Mean It, The Killers. The chapters create a mixtape that the main character, Sam, once made when he was growing up. Each song is meant to match what is happening in the chapter both in sound and lyrics.

The Mixtape:

  • 1. Smile Like You Mean It – The Killers
  • 2. Spiral Gaze – Off Road Minivan
  • 3. Black Gives Way To Blue – Alice In Chains
  • 4. Skin To Skin – Movements
  • 5. Fear Yourself/Jesus Wept – Emery
  • 6. Timothy – As Cities Burn
  • 7. Living Apology – Movements
  • 8. Sad & Guilty Ways – Kids In The Way
  • 9. Blur – Anchor & Braille
  • 10. Wolves – Us In Motion
  • 11. Vanish – Thousand Below
  • 12. On My Teeth – Underoath
  • 13. Wisher – Terminal

New Book Coming May 3rd!

How fitting that my last post here was about trying to write through depression, and months later I’m back with my first book in six years! I’m so happy to announce that my new book – What If There’s Nothing? will be coming out on Kindle and paperback on May 3rd!

What If There’s Nothing? is a 230 page story about overcoming trauma, finding forgiveness & love.

Sam’s life is stunted. He’s never been able to move passed a tragedy from his teenager years. He holds blame heavily on himself and his family.

Reilly is taking a few days away from her life as it grows in discourse and complications. She decides to spend a few days with her parents, hoping to escape and have fun with her friends. However, chaos finds her shortly after running into her old friend, Sam.

Front cover photo by Vlad Bagacian

Shadow & Soul For Your Demonic Pleasures

My new book, Shadow & Soul is available to buy now on Amazon! 

But you may be asking yourself, why would I buy some stranger’s book about demons and other carnivalistic things? 

Well I’m glad you asked… 

A monster was born out of a family massacre in 1886. Flash forward to modern times, this monster has set its eyes on a teenage girl, but for a reason that remains to be seen. 

Do you like Insidious, The Conjuring, or Sinister? Wouldn’t you like to read a book that plays on the fear of your own imagination? It’s not what’s in the details, it’s what’s left to your mind’s wandering imagination. 

Yes it’s a sequel to Infernous, but you don’t need to read the first one to understand this one, although it might not be a bad idea to pick that up as well. 

Thanks for reading! 

Shadow & Soul Out Now! 

2 Quick Rules To Writing Horror

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Photo Source

In my research for the Infernous Trilogy, I’ve found two consistent pieces of advice to write the most compelling horror.

  1. Think of a book or a movie that disturbed you the most. I’m not talking about cheap jump scares, but something that unsettled your gut. Maybe it’s just a single picture you found floating around online like the one above, a King novel, or a James Wan film. Either way, likely, it was a relatively vague monster/demon/creature/etc. Here is why over explaining your nemesis can actually be a bad thing.

Detail of the enemy can be your own enemy

All through your writing ventures and your schooling from the age of 6, you’re taught detail detail DETAIL. The more detail the better – so long as it keeps the story line moving. However, this rule has an end in horror writing. Everyone has something that they fear. Whether it’s a memory of their childhood house basement, a scene in a movie, or something that they simply made-up in their head. But – that isn’t someone else’s fear. It’s only yours.

You have a much better chance of scaring the hell out of your readers by painting a vague picture of what your enemy is, but not give away too many details. Maybe your character only sees a silhouette of the beast. Maybe they see it fully, but you just don’t explain it. Why do you do this? Because:

When details end, the reader’s imagination picks up and creates their own worst nightmare.

A side-note as well: When your enemy is unknown, it’s creepier as well. When the reader doesn’t know what the thing in the corner of the room is, it let’s their mind travel to its own darkest depths.

2. Long sentences.Short sentences have their place. But rarely in horror. It’s disjointed. It disrupts the flow. And detail matters. Except when it’s about the nemesis. See?

When you said the scene for each chapter, go crazy with details and long descriptive sentences. Set your rooms, buildings and scenery with such vividness, the reader will see it in their head. Long sentences can suck them into a story.

 

We need more horror writers out there! Comment your thoughts, questions, or details of your latest horror project!

How To Write A Book On Your Phone

I’m sure I’m not the only one with this problem…I can’t find the time to write. The worst part about this statement is that it’s not even entirely true. Everyone has time to write.

Here’s my issue. I work nights, and my best time to write is when I get home before I go to sleep. Except when I get home, I’m destroyed and want nothing more than to relax and unwind. Even though we can say that writing is our dream, our passion, and career in the works, it’s WORK. Make no mistake. Writing is fun, but it’s tedious and hard work. So when I get home from work, I don’t want to work more.

I’m making it easier for myself and thought I would share what I’m doing.

I have the benefit of being able to use my phone for long periods of time at my job, but not a computer. So I went on an Amazon buying purge and bought myself a phone holder – this one here and then I bought a Bluetooth keyboard that will sync to my phone – this here 

Since I, like most people write novels on Microsoft Word – I downloaded their app which is well reviewed. Saving my documents on SkyDrive, I can access them from the app and work on them and type to my heart’s desire. I haven’t done any of this yet, I’m waiting for the products to come in the mail, but I’m sure this will solve my lazy writing habits.

Full size keyboard for a phone, it’s going to look funny but it will work.

 

Free Books On Kindle

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Both of my books are free next weekend on Kindle!
Infernous is a fast paced horror story about a demonic possession and what happens inside the mind of possessed person.
A Song For Swans is about a teenager with a nearly immediate life ending cancer and how he copes with the sudden idea of death.

Both are free on Kindle next weekend!

The Belittling Of Writers

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STOP!

If you’re a writer you have heard the following statements:

“I always wanted to write a book, except…”

“You have so many good ideas – you should write a book!”

“You always have such great stories – you should write a book!”

“Can I be a character in one of your books?”

 

If you’re a writer you have seen the following phrases somewhere:

“Careful not to make me angry, I’ll put you in my next book! (Or some variation)

Okay, I can only think of one phrase…

All of these insult my passion and profession as a writer to the core of my being. Allow me to explain myself…

I’m all for having fun, making jokes about pretty much everything because who doesn’t want life to be fun? And maybe if these phrases and pieces of conversation were done so in moderation, it wouldn’t be bad because hearing one of these once in a while isn’t a big deal; hell, I wouldn’t even mind it at all. However, the volume of these phrases is out of control. Here’s why these statements are at heart – insulting the profession of writing and making a mockery of what we do.

 

  1. “I’ve always wanted to write a book, except I never had the time.” Let’s dissect this. This statement is fine if someone is actually interested and has a desire to write. However, that is never the case. It’s because they see your book and think how cool it would be to have a book of their own. So they put themselves on the same level as you by saying, “Yeah well, I always wanted to write a book, my friends tell me I should.”
  2. Be careful or you’ll end up in my novel. However innocent and joking as this statement is, a writer isn’t going to compromise his or her own’s book just to put someone they know in the story. It just belittles the act of writing a book. It’s difficult.

I need only ask one question: Do you write? The answer of that question will determine if you’re a writer or not.

Okay, so I’m not going to dissect each one, it would be redundant and boring. But the core belief of all these statements is consistently the belittling of writing. Just because someone thinks it would be cool to be a writer, doesn’t mean they have the stones to do it. And please hear me out, I don’t mean to put myself or fellow writers on some stage and say “YOU CAN’T BE US. WE’RE AWESOME.” That’s not at all what I mean.

For me, writing isn’t a fun, carefree thing I do because it’s my hobby. I already have an post on my site titled “Writing Is Not My Hobby.” It’s not my hobby. It’s my dream, my profession, my passion. It is literally the most important thing to me beyond family and friends. It’s everything to me. So when someone acts like my small and seldom accomplishments could be achieved by anyone who THINKS they could just pick up a pen and write an eighty thousand word book, it backhandedly slaps any writer in the face.

Being a writer is a hard life, and it only gets harder with the evolving…or devolving industry – depending on how you look at it.

Do you have an interest in writing? That’s great! Truly. Talk to a writer about it, they’d love to talk your ear off about everything and I mean everything. The majority of writers and authors are like most musicians – the nicest and most sincere people you will meet. They love talking about their passion. I would love to talk to anyone who wants to get into writing. But these nonchalant statements of how easy it would be to write a book are lazy and angering.

Maybe I’m being too sensitive, if so, just tell me. Zac, stop being a whiny (insert expletive). Either way – I don’t have many things that bother me. But this one takes the cake.

Thanks for reading my tirade.

Writing Is Not My Hobby

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(picture from http://www.sliverofice.com/blog/)

How many writers are out there who are belittled and dismissed as lost souls with a useless hobby?
I’ve just published my 4th book and I’m taken aback when people so close to me refer to my career as a hobby.

A man slaves over wood for hours, days, weeks and months to make a beautiful table and chairs. He may work somewhere to pay the bills but he does his wood work because he loves it. That isn’t a hobby. It’s art and he’s an artist.

I write novels, short stories and poetry. It is art and I am an artist.
Do you write? Draw? Paint? Slave over something you love?
You’re a goddamn artist.

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn