The Hipster Level Is Strong With This One

I can’t be the only one who loves records?
There’s something to be said about records, actual records, not MP3’s, not Spotify, not even CDs.
Music has become so immaterial and soulless, not only in quality but how we care for it.
You can’t damage an MP3. You can’t break iTunes, unless you’re some master hacker with a purpose.
The amount of care you have to put into a record can be time consuming but it’s also so worth it.
Think of an album that really means something to you. For me, it’s After The Gold Rush by Neil Young.

Do you want to just look at the artwork on a screen and listen to a sub par quality version? Or do you want to hold it in your hands, a fragile piece of art of the highest quality. Do you want to make the music that already meant something to you mean so much more that you have to physically keep it safe.
Drop the needle on a record and listen to music birth to life.

May 14, 2016May 14, 2016 by Zac Zinn Categories: Creative writing, inspirational, life, music, Reflection, Vinyl, WritingTags: creative writing, life, music., Neil young, Records, Vinyl 1 Comment

And Then I Fall Asleep (Truth Tuesday)

I’m starting a new weekly writing prompt to encourage writing for not only myself but others. It’s called Truth Tuesdays. Similar to one line Wednesday, it’s a short piece of truth; just something you have to say.
So here’s mine…

There are so many small things happening in my life that I feel the need to amount them to a sum or believe that they’ll lead to something but they don’t. They’re just a lot of small conversations and occurrences that happen, and then I go to sleep in the morning.
Thanks,
Zac

March 15, 2016 by Zac Zinn Categories: Creative writing, life, Photography, Reflection, WritingTags: creative writing, photography, truth Tuesday, Writing Leave a comment

When Does Life Get In The Way Of Writing?

Does life get in the way of writing more than it helps?

Lately I’ve been finding life getting too busy and complicated and it’s been messing with my writing time. The worst part is that it’s not just the busyness that ruins my writing times because I still have time to write. My mind is so warped and tired from the events around me, I just sit and stare at a computer screen and accomplish nothing.

However on the adverse, it’s been life that inspired me to do all my writing. Whether it was horror writing, realistic fiction or just songwriting, life has inspired it all. It was occurrences during my childhood and adolescence that inspired the horror. It was a dearly missed friend dying of cancer that inspired my realistic fiction. Lastly, it’s love and love-lost that inspired most of my songwriting.

I’ve found that extraordinarily good and bad things in life inspire writing – at least from me. Death, a breakup, finding love, or keeping a friendship alive, it all spurs embers in the writing mind’s fire. But the humdrum everyday buzz of life combats those more meaningful events. It’s a constant struggle with a push-pull state of warfare. It’s the taxes, the 40 hour work weeks, worrying about bills life that brings down creativity and brings to light apathy, fatigue, and laziness of the mind.

Maybe it’s the best writers that are able to use all aspects of life towards writing and I’m just not there yet. Still, it’s no fun being in a valley and not having the inspiration or heart to write. Writing is a bloodline after all and I’m only complete when I can pursue my career and dream.

March 5, 2016 by Zac Zinn Categories: Creative writing, life, literature, Photography, WritingTags: books, CREATIVE, creative writing, life, Writing Leave a comment

Walter Died

This here is Walter, say hi.

So I totaled my car the other day. Without going into the menial details, it wasn’t my fault and thankfully the insurance companies agree. However I found, and find myself rather sad about saying goodbye to my friend Walter. Yes, his name is Walter. Yes, it’s a HE.

Insert insecure gay joke here because I named my car a guy’s name…

But I’m curious to know how naming an inanimate object somehow gives it personality. Why am I attached to a car? I gave it the name Walter and assigned it a personality that doesn’t exist. I imagined the car having a mind of its own, fighting through the hot and cold seasons just to get me to where I needed to go when in reality it was just a series of metal and plastic pieces with no heart at all.

Is it because I’m a writer that I pretend to personalize a car? Is it because I’m young? I know I’m not the only young person to name a car or get hung over one when it gets trashed.

I call it a combination of the two, which is a double whammy unfortunately for myself. I think younger people are searching for so many things that they name vehicles to fill a void that hasn’t been filled by something more significant yet. Either that – or they do it because they’re bored.

I can only look at myself as an example. I’m single, besides my writing career which is taking its sweet time getting started, I work a crappy job and still struggle to support myself. There is a lot to be desired in my life. I have long friendships that blossomed in adolescent life, but in the shadow of adulthood, are dwindling down to but embers.

I took pictures of Walter because I wanted to remember him and the memories we shared. I had many life changing conversations and experiences within him. I went on my only vacation with my best friend and drove to Kentucky on 3 hours of sleep. I drove to North Carolina to meet my brother on a whim and went to countless shows. I took pretty girls on dates and got to fog up the windows on a few occasions. From my perspective, I should feel a degree of friendship with the car. I spent fragile years of my life with him. He was my bro. And in the end, he protected me when someone decided to be Pennsylvania’s dumbest driver.

People don’t do these things later in their life because they have filled those voids. Maybe my next car will have a name, maybe it won’t. I can only assume that when I have a car that doesn’t have a name, it means I’ve moved on to some degree.

But I’m young, and I’m a writer. I like adventure; anything to make life more interesting than it is. So here’s to you Walter, you magnificent bastard – here’s to the years I spent trying to figure myself out with you.

RIP

 

March 4, 2016 by Zac Zinn Categories: Creative writing, life, Uncategorized, WritingTags: creative writing, life, memories, Nostalgia, reflection, Writing 1 Comment

Teenage Suicide – Nobody Talks

(photo from njhopeline.com)

Have you ever been bullied? Most probably have at one point in their life.
We’re gonna change subjects here from writing to a serious topic that needs brought to light.
Teenage suicide.
It’s on the rise and nobody will talk about it.
On April 27, 2006 my friend Jennifer took her life in her home. She was fourteen years old; actually she was fourteen that day. She killed herself on her fourteenth birthday.
I’m going through my days almost ten years later racking my mind about it.

I myself faced a tremendous amount of bullying during my high school years. It was so much that after just two months into my freshmen year, I withdrew and continued through cyber school.
I’m not here to pass blame to the kids and families who may cause the damage or the students and teachers who can ignore it, but to raise awareness to this real thing that affects everyone.
I had no idea Jenn had it so bad. I can’t understand what it was like, a young girl Googling how to successfully hang yourself. Did she fail the first few times? How many times did she almost do it but stopped at the last second? Or what was that last week like that pushed her over the edge? Did she truly have no one she could turn to?

What potentially angered me the most was how nobody cared about her until she was dead. “She was such a nice person.”
None of them knew her.
It’s the falsehood, the pretense, the fakes that come in pretending to care about a person or the issue suicide itself because it seems like it’s the good thing to do.

Here are the facts.
In 2014 there were 41,149 reported suicides in the US.
According to the NY Daily News, teenage suicide has risen in 2009 to 2012 from 6.3% to 7.8%.
A semi annual survey performed by the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System last conducted in 2013 found that 1 in 12 teenagers have attempted suicide.

Whether it’s bullying in a school or in a home, Help wherever you can because a rope isn’t hard to acquire. Google can tell you whatever you need to know and there are plenty of freaks who encourage people to do it.

Jenn fought it until the end, and the end was way too soon.

We must stop being reactive about this and become proactive. After it’s done, there’s no going back.

Jennifer Lauren Fongheiser, 1992-2006
I will never forget you.

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn

July 31, 2015July 31, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: Depression, life, SuicideTags: awareness, depression, issues, suicide, suicide prevention, Teenage suicide Leave a comment

Writing Is Not My Hobby

(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

July 3, 2015August 2, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: Books, Creative writing, inspirational, life, literature, novels, Reflection, WritingTags: creative writing, life, Writing 2 Comments

The Truth Behind Our Eyes

We live in a land and time where easy answers are the most desired responses
There’s a teenager battling with depression because of his parents divorce
Theres a young man fighting an addiction borderlining on suicide because of his assumed self worth
There’s fifteen more people in every twenty fighting losing battles
But when someone asks them how they’re doing
The response they hear is an easy response
It’s the desired answer
The person asking doesn’t really want to know
They want “good, great, ok, alright.”
Pick your poison
The teenager says good because her separated parents don’t really want to know what’s inside her diary
The man fighting addiction tells them that he’s doing great, he’s still alive after all
But he can’t wait until he gets back home to stick a needle in his arm
She’s good and he’s great
The truth behind our eyes will remain unseen so long as poison continues to be picked over honesty and reason

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn

April 27, 2015April 27, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: Creative writing, life, literature, poetry, Quotes, Reflection, WritingTags: addiction, creative writing, depression, poetry, suicide Leave a comment

Clocks & Words

A precious piece of time
Sitting over top a leather bound journal
They are separate but one
A reflection of time spent writing words
Words that are seen by one or two few
But words that can stand the trials of time
Time that this clock will count

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn

April 15, 2015April 15, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: Creative writing, life, literature, Photography, poetry, Quotes, reading, WritingTags: creative writing, life, photography, poems, poetry, Writing Leave a comment

How It Feels – Finish Writing A Book

There was a sense of accomplishment as I finished the last word. Even more so when I opened the box and saw my completed product. As I looked at my binded book, I thought of the events that brought me to it.
It took me 4 years to get there. But even so, I looked at it knowing I can do so much better. I can put more detail in, more dialogue, better characters, better everything.
Just as I have to write to call myself a writer, I have to keep improving my words to be proud of my work.

Keep writing, keep fighting, that’s today’s mantra.

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn

March 12, 2015March 12, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: Books, Creative writing, inspirational, life, literature, novels, WritingTags: creative writing, inspiration, life, publishling, Writing Leave a comment

A Writer’s Sorrow

A Writer’s Sorrow

I dipped my quill in ink but my heart is dry
Finding myself only writing “…” I realize I’m empty
Call it what you want
Cold spell, dry spell, some blockage in the way
I can’t write, and I can’t live properly

It casts a shadow over the day
And covers night in black
Do I force the words?
Do I wait for them?

How many days have you gone without writing?
Days?
Months?
Years?
How long has it been since you released your heavens and hells onto a page?
If you feel blocked then please heed my advice because I have been there too many times. Go to a bookstore with no target in mind. Walk around for as long as it takes and find a book that stands out. Buy it on impulse and read it. Become enveloped by its story and fall into the power of what words can do. When you finish, grab a paper or open a blank document, and write what’s inside. You may even begin writing while you read the story.
Cover yourself in literature, and the words will find you.

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn

March 5, 2015March 5, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: inspirational, life, literature, Photography, poetry, Quotes, Reflection, WritingTags: inspirational, life, poems, poetry, Writing 1 Comment