Woody Harrelson is Haymitch!

I know I wasn't going to post today, but I just quickly want to announce, since I love both the Hunger Games and Woody Harrelson: Woody has been cast as Haymitch, my favorite tragic alcoholic from the books.

You can read about it, here. That is all.

Oh, also: thanks to Angela Ackerman and The Facebook for informing me of this EPIC WIN.

The Hunger Games

So I finished reading The Hunger Games this weekend. Wow. What a plot. What a character.

There were several things that struck me about this book. The first and probably the most obvious strength of this book is the pacing. Suzanne Collins has a unique ability to clutch the readers attention with her words and make it nearly impossible to put this book down. One thing she does that is especially compelling is to break her chapters up at a moment when it would normally be least expected. Her cliffhangers are unequaled by anything I've read recently. As a father with a day job I no longer have time to read books in one sitting. But I came closer with this novel than I have with any of late.

I don't have time to go on about this book forever but one other thing I would like to point out about Suzanne Collins is her writing. It's not simple, exactly, but I think the term direct describes it well. I've gotten some feedback recently about my own writing which basically has clued me in to how much I overwrite when it comes to description and setting a scene. Suzanne Collins does not have that problem. Of course she is writing for a YA audience, so there is that to consider but even as an adult I find her writing to be perfect for her subject matter. She does not use long sentences and tends to get right to the action. She occasionally spends some times describing something like an outfit the characters are wearing but there is a plot related reason for this that I won't go into for spoiler reasons.

Here is one quick example of a sentence from The Hunger Games that I thought said SO much with SO FEW words:

... she gives me a nod, and as she slips a spoon into my hand, I feel the pressure of friendship.

Even though I'm sure most of you have read it I'm not going to ruin it for others by sharing the context in which this occurred, but I will say that it would have most likely taken me several sentences to get that point across. I'm going to try to be more concise as I continue to re-write WARRIOR-MONKS.

In other news my new found friend and blogger buddy Jared Larson has a wonderful plan for an interview with one of my favorite people. He intends to do it soon but not until he has a certain amount of followers. I'm not giving anything else away but I will say please go visit this guy's blog and follow him! I want to read this interview!

Thank you. That is all.

Step Three and The Fair

Hi. My name is Matthew and I'm a blogaholic.

You can often find me neglecting my family, my job, and my personal hygiene in favor of reading blogs.

Today I am on Step Three.

I've made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of Nathan Bransford as I understand Him (see the forums).

Disclaimer: This post is satirical. It is not meant to offend anyone, or to belittle the integrity of 12 Step Programs anywhere, which have saved countless lives since their inception.

So. I promised to share about my trip as well. I will.

Kelly and I took our daughters to Minnesota over the weekend and first part of the week. The main reason for the visit was to surprise Kelly's grandma Darlene (the kids great-grandmother) for her 80th birthday. And great she is. She's a huge Vikings fan so we watched the pre-season game with bated breath when Favre may have, almost, hurt his wrist. But it looks like everything turned out okay.

On Monday we visited the Minnesota State Fair. The Great Minnesota Get Together as it's affectionately known (imagine the Scandinavian accent) is the second largest state fair in the country, after Texas. It is, however, in my opinion, the largest collection of deep fried food, on a stick, that you can eat anywhere. It is especially famous for Pronto Pups and Cheese Curds (I could explain what those are but it's more fun if you imagine it for yourself) but this year I witnessed some amazing things like Deep Fried Candy Bars on a stick, Super Bacon (on a stick, that's for you Elana), Hot Dago on a stick, Meatball Sundays, Pork Chop on a stick, Deep Fried Sliders (no stick), and many other amazing culinary ideas. But my mind was blown this morning when I heard a story on NPR about Deep Fried Beer at the Texas State Fair. Apparently there is a Heaven.

There are many more wonderful kitschy stories I could tell about the fair but I don't have time. Instead I want to share briefly about the book I'm reading. I brought two books with me on the trip but with the flight and lots of free time around the family I finished them up before we had to catch our flight home. I've been hearing so many wonderful things about Suzanne Collins and her novels that I finally decided to pick up The Hunger Games.

The good news is that the paperback was available even in the worthless little newsstand at the HHH terminal at MSP. There isn't really any bad news. I think this is great for publishing, but especially for YA literature. I have no idea what the exact sales numbers are for this series but it's nice to see a serious story achieving this kind of commercial success.

I'm only five chapters in, so I have really no spoilers but I will briefly say this: Normally I can't stand present tense, first person POV makes it a little easier to deal with (normally) but in this novel, with this story, it actually works quite well. The immediacy raises the tension and fits the pacing perfectly (so far). This is a harsh world, and a hard story. I don't know how common that kind of thing is in YA but I find it gripping and compelling. My own WIP YA novel is meant to be taken quite seriously so it is encouraging to see something that has some underlying social themes doing so well, and being told so masterfully.

I will have to check back in once I'm further along, but for now, for those of you who are all the way through with Mockingjay and all of it, is it really as good as it seems? As far as I can tell it's going to be a wild, wonderful ride.