News!!

Next month, I will be a published author! To explain this somewhat sudden turn of events, there needs to some exposition, so here we go:

There is a newly founded publisher called "Zombie Nation Publishing," and earlier this year, they released an anthology of Zombie-related fiction called "Zombie St. Pete," and one of the cool things about the anthology was that the setting of the stories compiled is none other than right here in my wonderful hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida! The first release was a huge success, and so in September, a second book is going to be released, with new fiction and poetry. 

One of the staff members of Zombie Nation Publishing was a classmate of my friend and occasional writing partner Stephanie Smith, and he contacted her, hoping that she could help him find a local poet who would be willing to contribute poetry to the anthology. That poet is me! I wrote, revised, proofed, re-revised, re-proofed and re-re-revised a pair of poems for the anthology, and if all goes to plan, I will be published next month!

As a little sneak preview of the anthology, I figured I would enclose a short snippet of one of the poems, just you whet your appetite.  Enjoy!

An excerpt from "Thoughts upon the Beach"

Sway on, palm tree leaves, no
different now, the beach.
No longer haunt
for breathing souls,
moan's drown the seagull's screech

—Zack

I Am The Messenger Review

Well, I haven't posted a review for "Hero Type," I haven't written any poetry or fiction, and my scripts are as last minute as ever. Looks like I'm well on my way to doing nothing that I said I was going to do.


So, to combat this, I'm going to post an impromptu review of a book I just recently finished, "I Am The Messenger" by Markus Zusak. (For you non-Americans, the book was released as "The Messenger")

                   

 I Am The Messenger is the story of Ed Kennedy, a 19-year-old cab driver. After foiling a bank robbery, Ed begins to receive playing cards in the mail, each one an ace of a different suit with addresses or clues marked on them, and realizes that he is now a messenger, and that it is his job to decipher the clues to deliver the messages to people in his town, whether it be a pair of squabbling brothers or a worn-down priest or a shy teenager.

As the story progresses, Ed's targets turn from strangers around town to his tight-knit circle of friends, and then, to himself.  Ed Kennedy is not the messenger, but something else entirely.  I'll let you read it and find out

This is not my first encounter with the work of Markus Zusak; I have read and now own a copy of his most famous work, The Book Thief(Which I'll probably review in the coming weeks).  I Am The Messenger a good story, well-written and organic.  It's not the perfect book, but it's certainly easier to read than the purple prose of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series.  I suggest you go out and borrow this book from your local library right away.

Decluttering My Life

It's been a while since I've posted anything on here, but in my defense, my life is a chaotic mess. I always have something I should be doing from the moment I drag myself out of bed in the morning to when I drag myself back to my bed at the end of the day. Whether I'm doing stuff for the band I'm in or writing skits for the children's ministry puppet and drama team I co-lead or working or whatever, there's always something on my plate. And frankly, I haven't been great at organizing my time. 

The scripts I write are due every other week, and though I have the source material on my desk, I don't usually due them until the day they're due.

The songs I have to learn so I can record them are in a folder on my headboard, but it's usually not until the last minute that I actually practice them. 

I have six or seven writing projects that I'm working on, and none of them are ever going to be completed if all I do is glance over them as I search for my copy of Ico.

I have a Youtube channel I've been neglecting since December, a Dailybooth account I haven't used in just as long, and this blog, which has a dozen half-baked posts sitting in drafts.

It's not like I don't have free time.  I have a LOT of free time, thanks to the fact I'm taking the semester off from my studying and only working 20-hours or so a week. I just don't use that time well, and when I sit down and think about it, having nothing to show from the last few months but some money in the bank for school and a car is an absolute disgrace.

So here's what I'm going to do.  I'm going to cut the things out of my life that I don't have the drive or resources to complete.  This is what I'm cutting out:

1. My Youtube channel.  I  lack a camera or personal computer to make videos with any sort of regularity, and when I do borrow a camera from my brother, I don't know what the heck I'm going to say or do. Solution? Not even try to make videos for a while. Now, I'm not saying that I will never make videos again, just that for right now, there are things I would rather spend my time and resources on. If things change and I have the desire to make videos and can do it, I will.  I know I've got a few subscribers that I'm potentially letting down(I say potentially because, in all honestly, my videos were never that great.) and for that, I'm sorry. But I have to do this.

2. My Dailybooth.  This isn't a huge deal, because I never think about it, but still.

3. Video Gaming. I enjoy playing video games, but the sense of satisfaction I get out of beating a game is nothing compared to feeling I get when I finish a poem or a short story, and I would rather focus more on writing.

4. Marathon Show-Watching.  In the past, I've blown whole days and weeks doing but watching TV shows.  It's fun, but it's something I can live without.  Exception: LOST.

In addition to cutting things out, I'm going to set goals for myself, and these are a few.

1. Read my entire Bible before the year is over.

2. Write scripts at least 5 days before they're due.

3. Practice my guitar/bass at least an hour a day (Not including songwriting or song-learning.)

4. Write two poems a month.  If I like them enough, I'll post them here.

5. Write at least 25 pages of fiction a month.

6. Post a book review once a month on this blog.  This month, I'm going to be reviewing "Hero Type" by Barry Lyga.

I'm tired of wasting my life, and now I'm going to do something about it. I would love to hear your thoughts.

—Z

It's that magical time of year again...

...when winter is just around the corner(strictly in the calender sense, living on a peninsula of a peninsula in a subtropical region means true "winter" never occurs), when people put away their Edward Cullen costumes and begin to decorate for Thanksgiving and Christmas, when people like me start freaking out over presents for the latter occasion.



Since I'm a Christian and I come from a Christian family, I celebrate Christmas and that's it. No (C)Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Winter Solstice or Festivus or Ritual of the Prancing Lamb, just Christmas.

 Festivus for the rest of us!

That's it.  And my family celebrates it pretty religiously. (See what I did there? Religiously? Christmas? Sometimes I crack myself up...*) We have the usual fare; tree, lights, presents, stories of Santa Claus descending out nonexistent chimney and eating the cookies we never leave out out for him, but also have various nativity scenes and we try to celebrate the real reason for the season**, the Birth of Jesus. All of this stuff is well and good and great, but there's one bad thing about Christmas:

Presents.

I am probably the crappiest gift-giver alive. The combined facts that I am a poor college student and that I am only creative when it comes to the Big Five (Fiction, Poetry, Songwriting, Playwriting, and Lying) usually means that I usually spend the better part of my time second-guessing myself when I try to buy gifts for my friends(my family has learned that I need a list of gift options, otherwise they're all gonna get weird presents.) which results in me purchasing the most generic of all gifts: Giftcards. *insert dramatic music*

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing inherently wrong with the giftcard. It's just that it can seem to be so friggin' impersonal. 

So last year, I wrote down a list of solutions to this gif-giving conundrum, which i have now enclosed for your viewing pleasure.

Option 1-Just flat out ask recipient what they want.
Pros: Simple, to-the-point, guaranteed good gift. *Works well with guys*
Cons: No surprise involved, can be seen as overly forward.

Option 2- Ask the recipient's family and closest friends what they want.
Pros: Can be very effective.
Cons: Can be very weird if talking to people you don't know.

Option 3- Stalk the person, then create a chart on what they buy and deduce what you should buy for them.
Pros: Can be quite thrilling.
Cons: Creepy, odd, and illegal. And did I mention creepy?

Option 4- Create something as a gift.
Pros: Uber-personal and heartfelt.
Cons: Writing poetry, songs and young-adult dystopian fiction can seem cheap, and I don't think girls like it when you write songs and poetry to them, something about "sending the wrong message." Also, if all you're good at is vacuum repair, you're screwed.

Option 5- Pay attention to what people don't have, then guess on if they would want it.
Pros: Shows you pay attention to your friends (if you guess well)
Cons: Results in a confusing, lame, or useless gift (if you don't guess well)

Option 6- Giftcards/money!!!
Pros-Practical.
Cons- Impersonal, can be seen as reducing a friendship to the money it's worth.(Definitely not a good thing.)

So you can see why I'm so torn on what to do. Normally, I'd be an Option 5 person, but I'm constantly second-guessing if what I'm buying is somebody a person wants, as opposed to what they need.

I'm gonna do some work over the coming weeks in gift-plotting, and if you have any ideas, please let me know!

—Z

PS: If you are a friend of mine, you could also send me a list of what you want. That way, you are moderately surprised at what I get you and you at the same time don't receive an INCREDIBLY crappy gift. :)



*-This is not one of those times.
**-Which is terribly cliche, but it's so dang catchy at the same time!

A Day in the Life...

Being a college student, I usually spend most of my time on campus in a classroom.  But last week, I had a rare treat; my English Lit class was going to the USF Library Special Collections Department of Really Friggin' Old Books to check out some of the rare Victorian-era books the Library housed. Everyone was really excited, for 3 reasons:

Reason Numbah 1: We were tired of our classroom. The desks are uncomfortable, the room is alternately too hot or too cold(sometimes it flip-flops between to the two mid-class), and some of the lights flicker ominously.*

Reason B) We were tired of our teacher. She's normally okay, but for the last few days, she's been painfully boring to listen to. Naturally, a change of speaker seemed a welcome concept.

III- We're English Majors. You say "Look! Books!" and we immediately go into a literary frenzy. "Books?! Where are they? I want to read them!!!!" (In all reality, a couple of English Majors** would inform you not that "Look!" and "Books!" were not full sentences or statements, and that you should be ashamed of yourself.)

So we made the arduous trek through the Florida heat to the library.

This was the sand trap we encountered on the way to the library.  Several of my fellow English nerds didn't make it.


Anywhom, when we got to the Special Collections Department (of Really Friggin' Old Books), we were informed that the librarian had accidentally double-booked us with an Africana Studies workshop, so we had to sneak past the workshop, which had been discussing "Aryan supremacist propaganda in the 20th century," to get into the conference room booked for us. (A note: perhaps this is only true at the University of South Florida, but from what I've seen, English majors tend to be Caucasian.[and exceptionally pale to boot]) This made for a more-than-slightly-awkward moment, because the leader of the workshop did not just ignore the score of students passing through the back of the room, he stopped his lecture. To stare at us. This caused the rest of the workshop attendees to stop what they were doing and stare at us as well.

Fun stuff.

After we finally got into our conference room, we saw what made our road of trials worth trekking:

a mountain of books.

We then were seated at a long table that made me feel like we were in the midst of a very formal business meeting, so naturally, I leaned forward and, with my most professional tone, said,  "Well, I'm sure you're wondering why I called this meeting..."  And to my relief, some people actually laughed! And no even those laughs you hear when someone tells a very painfully lame joke either!

We got to check out some of Charles Dickens' novel in their original form, in serial sections that are something like comic books, except without awesome superheroes...or pictures... but they did have something that no one excepted: ads.  To finance the printing of the serials, the publishers inserted ads of every sort, from gowns and dresses for the ladies to sticks designed to wipe crap off of shoes(I kid ye not) which helped bring down the price of the booklet-thingies immensely.

Some of these serials were 150+ years old, and on more than one occasion little tiny book-bits tumbled down into my lap when I opened the book, which was both cool and slightly off-putting.


Seriously, Zack?  Old book crumblies weirded you out?
Yes, ItalicsMan, but just because the bits in my lap were over a century and a half old, and also because each little serial was worth it's weight in gold. and let me let you, those serials added up to a lot!


So that was a short look into my life, I hoped you enjoyed it.

—Z


*ominously= annoyingly.
**-A couple of English Majors=All of the English Majors

Two posts, one song.

Wow, two posts in one day?! Shocking, I know...

I finally got around to typing this out.  This is an "odd" song that I recently wrote, still not sure how I feel about the imagery and the tone to it. I also haven't played for anyone yet, maybe I should do that, too...  Your comments and impressions are more than welcome!

"Drown"


Verse 1
Fall into the sea,
Where we can finally be
Alone and so free,
Drowning peacefully,

No one can save you,
There's nothing you can do,
Nothing to hold to,
Just sink into the blue

Prechorus
Let your last breath out,
Wash away your doubt

Chorus
Drown with me,
Stolen by the sea,
We'll grow gills and fins,
And let our new life begin,
Underneath the waves

Verse 2
This is how we hoped it would end
You and I together again
Breathe your first breath in
First of the mer-women

Forever we can be,
Explorers of the sea,
The ocean's king and queen,
Living blissfully

Prechorus 2
Our new home is here,
What have you to fear?

Chorus 2
Drown with me,
Sleep in the sea,
Our scales shining in the sun,
When our new life has begun,
Underneath the waves.
*Fin* (Dah-bum-pssh)

Tell me what you think!

—Z

I suck at blogging...

...but if I said that every time several weeks passed between my blog posts, all of my blogs would be titled "I suck at blogging..." Which is true, yes, but not particularly creative or witty.

"And now for something completely different."

I'm still working on my story idea for NaNoWriMo, which scares me just the teensiest bit because it begins on Sunday, and if I still haven't decided what I'm doing by then, it's gonna end up looking like a major hot mess come December.  This is what I know so far...
1.

It's not a ghost story. (or Ghostbusters story, for that matter.)

2. It involves dystopian America. Yes, I know, that's the 'it' thing nowadays (or it might not be, I dunno.  Are people still obsessed over vampires? I hope not...), but I really like the idea of deserted city-ruins and wastelands.

3. It involves bad guys called the "Truthless Heroes," which is a name I stole from an album by Project 86, pixx0r'd here:

 (Said Truthless Heroes are neither superheroes nor bodies with monitors for heads.  But they ARE evil.  And truthless.)

4. One of the main characters is named Six.  Whether that's his actual name or a nickname I haven't decided on yet. Probably the logical former.

5. There are going to be two minor characters named Lora and Emma who are making a documentary during the events of the story.  In all likelihood, they will be nothing like my friends Lauren and Emily, but you never know...

6. There's going to be a lot of misdirection and chaos. But that's just how I write :)

I'll give you guys more updates on the story as I figure them out, and I might post excerpts if I have time.

Take care!

—Z