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

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

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

Parking Lot Poetry

So it’s been a super long time since I posted something, I apologize. Life got in the way of writing.
I’m currently looking for a 2nd writer to assist in writing for this site. If you have any interest, shoot an email to rawrock@rocketmail.com

Anyway, here’s a poem I’m writing on the spot right now. Like right meow.

Nobody ever told me how this would be
After to many years I finally see
The error in my ways
Hindsight always pays

I can kick myself hard
Charge more on my card
To help me forget your face
But is forgetting worth the race

The race is life
And I’m going way too fast
Slow down please, please slow down
I can forget your face but I can’t rid myself of your heart

There it is, sitting in my car in a parking lot.

Photo from a few nights ago

Thanks everyone for sticking with,
Zac Zinn

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn

February 11, 2015February 11, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: friends, life, literature, Love, Photography, poetry, Quotes, Reflection, WritingTags: life, love, poems, poetry, Writing Leave a comment

A Gleam Of Light

I posted this a few days ago but I realized it wasn’t finished. This piece of writing, I am most proud of, here is A Gleam Of Light

A gleam of light from the street lamp up ahead radiates and reaches her eyes as she looks into his. It’s the twenty-seventh smile she’s shone his way this night but he’s trying not to count. Smiling back like he had a choice, the twenty-something year old man looks down at his watch and sees the night is closing. Another hour and the sun will show the darkness its light.
Any other given night he would have been in a deep sleep until the droning noise from the alarm clock sounded. The sound signaling it was time to be an adult yet again.
However this night, this night is a night to be a child in love. It is conflict free and littered with happiness. The details of the relationship are void and serve no purpose to this night. The only thing worth knowing is that it had been years since he saw her; and he had no idea how he made it that long without seeing a face like hers.
Her bright blue irises were a syringe injecting a drug into his blood and he didn’t want to stop the addiction. She had even asked him why he looked at her the way he did. He told her he never saw eyes that quenched all his worries before. Her face turned red and he stole a kiss on her cheeks.
He took her hand when he saw snowflakes melting on her bare skin. A light drizzling of snow continued on, covering the roads and sidewalks with a thin layer of white. Friction is created between their palms that turned to a spark when the beating in his chest couldn’t be contained. He raises her hand and kissed just above her knuckles. It is a move that proved again he isn’t after her body but her heart. The smile that pressed on her face and rosy red cheeks told him he already had it.
Their light back and forth conversation went on talking of yesteryears and days gone by. The memories of the past remind him that his timing had always been unfortunate in all ways; too early, too late, somehow too in the middle. But this night seemed quell those times because nothing else mattered compared to her. She is the object of his desire – his obsession.
Upon passing the street lamp, a darkness appears on her face that is more than just the absence of physical light. He asks her what is wrong but she stays silent. No words are needed anyway. He knows what’s bothering her so.
It was the separation of years between them. It is knowledge that after this night is over, the reality of life will take the place of the peaceful bliss. It is the belief that their lives aren’t meant to stay intertwined.
Sometime later still during the waning minutes of the night, they sat at a bus stop bench. Their hands were no longer together. The quiet has haunted him ever since it began; ever since they passed the street lamp. He yearns to go back to when the ray of light stretched across her face.
People always asked him if he wanted something fast or forever. Thinking upon the hours that led him to the bus bench with her, he thinks that it was a flash faster than anything he experienced before.
He wants to say something, say anything to give her some measure of comfort. Never did he want the night to end this way. He searches for words but they escape him in the way that eye floaters evade direct sight. Abandoning the comfort of words for touch, he slides against her and puts his arm around her. She leans her head against his shoulder and by the look on her face, is soon asleep.
It is now that the first sign of light peaks over the horizon. Down the street, a bus turns onto the road and drives towards them.
He holds onto her as if he would never get to again. The fear in his heart tells him so. Taking the precious last moments he has, he presses his lips against the top of her head.
The night is over.
Morning is here.
The fear of today and tomorrow had been ridden away earlier but now they return.
Speaking her name softly into her ear, he wakes her to enter the bus. He stands next to her with a heavy heart.
People always asked him if he wanted something fast or forever. When he thought on the night that brought him to the morning, he knew what he had was entirely fast.
He wonders a question he can’t find the answer to.
Why can’t he have something fast and forever?
He disregards the question because there is no answer and follows her onto the bus.

1/22/15

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn

January 29, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: life, literature, Love, poetry, Reflection, WritingTags: city, life, love, night, poetry, Writing Leave a comment

Rhyme & Reason

Yes I know this is a dark and depressing poem. I’m not one of those guys that lives in dark and terrible poetry.. However I’m in a point of my life where things are rather dark. So like why writer, I turn to words express myself.
Here is Rhyme & Reason

There is no rhyme
All I am is losing time
There is no love
It flies away like a fleeing dove

There is no reason
Just another fading season
There is no plan
I’m just a wandering man

This isn’t the year
It will shed the same tear
Where is my ever after
It’s lost in the wind with my childhood laughter

Thank you
Zac Zinn
Photo by yours truly

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn

January 28, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: family, friends, life, literature, live your life, Love, Photography, poetry, Quotes, Reflection, WritingTags: dark, life, love, poem, poetry, time, Writing Leave a comment

A Gleam Of Light – One Night

A Gleam of Light
1/22/15

Tell me a story that you’ve never had the words to tell.
Tell me of a night you never wanted to end.
When you laughed like a child walking down a well-lit city street.

Will you take a small journey with me?
Will you go on a brief vacation from the world with me?

A gleam of light hits her eyes and you see a small piece of your own personal heaven in them. Her rich irises of green shine through you and make you feel weightless. Those eyes become a drug you can’t stop taking.
There’s warmth between your hands when they touch. The friction increases against your skin and lessens between your smiles. Your mind races from idea to idea because even at your sanest moment, you can’t understand the extension of bliss you feel.
Even at that chaos, you’re aware of the friction between your hands. Holding hers, you let the friction turn to spark. The spark lit to a brief flame as your lips press against the top of her hand. A move that lets her know you’re not after her body but after her heart. When you see a smile form from pure happiness on her face, you know that you have it.
Your timing in yesteryears has always seemed to be off somehow but in this night… it all comes together.
But at some point she gives a sigh that sounds of sadness. Doubt penetrates your head and you think that maybe this was only a one night vacation from a lonely life. When the reality of life sets in, maybe this night is only supposed to stay within those hours.
The sun is peaking over the horizon as the first breaths of morning hit your nose. Your hands are no longer touching and you’re sitting at a bus stop bench. There’s sadness in the air because the night you didn’t want to end, is finally ending. With the bus only five or ten minutes away, you’re struggling to find the words to say. You need to say something to give some amount of reassurance, but the words escape you. Settling for the comfort of touch, you slide closer to her and wrap your arm around her. Resting her head against you, she quickly falls asleep after the long and exciting night.
The night is over
Morning is here
The fear of what today and tomorrow holds rests inside
But when you watch her clouded exhales leave her mouth you think
People either get something fast or forever.
This night felt like a flash of light much like that first gleam that reflected from her eyes.
You find yourself asking a question to which you can’t find the answer.
Is it too much to ask for fast and forever?

1/22/15

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn

January 22, 2015January 23, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: friends, inspirational, life, literature, Love, poetry, Quotes, Reflection, WritingTags: life, literature, love, love story, romance, Writing Leave a comment

Life Just Kind Of Keeps Going

You know life just goes on and the time doesn’t slow down. Whether the days go by slowly or quickly, the years will go by quickly.
It causes me to reflect on the people who used to be in my life.
There is a quote that I wanted to work into some place in a piece and I guess it fits here.
Don’t stand still. Keep moving.
I’ve seen how life can wash over a person. Keep moving and love the people you love more than you did yesterday.

There’s my closing thoughts before I pass out

Thanks, Zac

Thank you for reading
Zac Zinn

January 15, 2015 by Zac Zinn Categories: inspirational, life, literature, live your life, Love, poetry, Quotes, Reflection, WritingTags: life, love, reflection, Writing Leave a comment