"One night I'm sitting there, flipping around and on one channel there's a group of young people competing for, I don't know, money maybe? And on the next, there's a group of young people fighting an actual war. And I was tired, and the lines began to blur in this very unsettling way, and I thought of this story."
Pretty random, huh? You never know what wild mashups your brain might create when it's zonked on TV alpha vibes, or generally woozy from exhaustion. Next, Collins spoke about her late start in writing fiction:
"Prose is full of many challenges and unexplored territory for me because I came to it later in my life... I've been scriptwriting for 27 years and books for maybe 10 years now. I think I started the first Gregor book, Gregor the Overlander, when I was 38."
Then I read a rather critical post from GS Prendergast, a blogger who thought that although THG was a brave book in dealing with oppression, it was curiously lacking in the type of sexual coercion which would likely occur in such a dystopia. Read her post for yourself and give me your take on this: The Asexual Politics of the Hunger Games. She also added this statement, which definitely gets one thinking: "Youth exploited by a violent movie event based on a book about youth exploited in a violent media event."
Did you feel at all guilty, secretly rooting for the death of Katniss' opponents? I do see Prendergast's point, yet I didn't mind that the book had little mention of sex--the stakes were just too darn high for rolling around in the underbrush!The last thing that caught my eye was actually written in 2009, by Kayley Hyde, a teen who won Scholastic's essay contest on THG. The essay question? How would you survive the Hunger Games? The answer? Read her entry. Her grand prize? A trip to New York to have lunch with Suzanne Collins. Not bad!
Seeing Katniss bowing up on all of the promo posters, I was bummed by one realization--A main character in my coming sequel to Fireseed One is a master archer (Armonk, who in Book One goes around shooting arrows). So, I just hope that archers aren't played out by the time I finish it!
Anyway, I intend to see the film asap and I'll post my review soon.
My next post will announce the winner of my free 25-page YA sci-fi manuscript critique!
In the meantime, I'd love to hear your opinion of Prendergast's THG post. And, in the spirit of Kelsey's smart essay, what strategy would YOU craft to win THG? Also, when do you get your best ideas? Have you ever gotten them when you're zonked out in front of the TV?
My next post will announce the winner of my free 25-page YA sci-fi manuscript critique!
In the meantime, I'd love to hear your opinion of Prendergast's THG post. And, in the spirit of Kelsey's smart essay, what strategy would YOU craft to win THG? Also, when do you get your best ideas? Have you ever gotten them when you're zonked out in front of the TV?