Hunger Games galore (I didn’t mean to)

December 15, 2013December 15, 2013 / Lisa / 1 Comment

Favourite Buzz

How To Write Your First Book has 21 authors giving their advice on some of the hardest things about writing. It is definitely well worth a read if you are wanting to write a book one day (like me). There are a few things that I already relate to in the answers, but also a few tips and ideas I can take away from it in order to get writing.

Some of my favourite quotes include:

I always intended to be a writer from the moment I could read, really. When I married my second husband he gave me the opportunity to stay home and write. I was 28.

– Charlaine Harris

I think not writing for my day job helped to let that muscle relax during the day so that I felt like writing when I came home at night.

– Leigh Bardugo

Even this thing you’re doing, this story, is kind of interesting, but I think in a lot of ways it will be detrimental to people trying to write books. I’m serious. What happens is: They will read this story and they will see these people giving their experience as if that experience is normative. As if the experience they’re describing is how it works. And of course every experience like this is totally unique. Trying to fit your life into someone else’s model is how bad books get created. Everyone wants advice about how to do something but it really only works if you’re only going to plow forward regardless if you know nothing. But then again, that’s how it was for me. So maybe I’m doing the exact same thing I’m complaining about.

– Chuck Klosterman

What I take from this is that 1. Man Piece will hopefully give me the opportunity to stay home and write. (One day. I’m working on him.) 2. Not writing for my day job may help in writing fiction – maybe I need to give up being a journalist and do something else, which leaves me the creative freedom to write fiction. 3. Every piece of advice from established authors is bullshit and you should do what works for you when it comes to your writing.

Favourite Image

I’ve had the 2013 National Geographic Photo Contest article open in my browser for awhile now. Who doesn’t love some amazing nature and animal photos? National Geographic, after all, does it best.

My favourite from all of these has to be the Orta Lake Storm Chasing by Riccardo Criseo as it shows just how far photographers will go for the shot.

Interesting Article

Textual analysis of The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Twilight revealed some interesting language use by the authors. Somehow The Hunger Games had ‘drunk’ as one of the most distinctive adjectives used. Personally, I think this is because of Haymitch. Twilight had the most common sentence of “I sighed.” Naturally. It is fairly interesting to know which words the authors favoured.

Fashion Love

This dress by Dior worn by Jennifer Lawrence to the Catching Fire premier in LA is amazing. For some reason, I just love it. If it wasn’t a mesh type material and see-through, I would totally wear something like it. Apparently even J-Law herself didn’t like it much. I came across it reading Cosmo’s list on scandalous red carpet outfits. This is definitely one of the tamer ones.

Grabby Hands

I really want to get my hands on some of the Capitol Colours collection from Cover Girl. It all looks so amazing. Just not sure who is stocking it. Cover Girl have created 12 looks for the 12 districts.

Video

I have had this ‘sneak peek’ of Veronica Mars sitting open in my browser for awhile. I am so keen to see the movie! It is set for release 14 March. I just hope it will be coming to a cinema down-under and I need to see this on the big screen. (Yes, I backed it in the Kickstarter.)

Veronica Mars: Love Triangle from Veronica Mars on Vimeo.

This post contains ALL the things (plus I couldn’t think of a headline)

September 15, 2013September 16, 2013 / Lisa

Where to start this week?

How about a picture of Joseph Gordon-Levitt cuddling a kitten?

Or this video of metronomes ticking out of sync and then slowly ticking as one. It’s pretty cool. It’s science!

J.K. Rowling announced a new Harry Potter universe film series based on Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them. It will be epic.

If you’re confused about what is going on in Syria, this is the best read out there and explains it in pretty simple terms.

Julianne Moore has been cast in Mockingjay as President of District 13 Alma Coin. I’m not sure how I feel about this. I may have to read the book again to see if she fits, but it is Hunger Games, so it *should* be good.

Miley Cyrus released her video for Wrecking Ball and while it has caused controversy, (honestly, why would you make a video of you riding a wrecking ball naked?) I do actually like the song. Don’t judge me.

This is a good read on plus-size models and begs the question as to why plus-size clothing isn’t modeled by those who are actually “plus-size”.

Last weekend I binge watched Orange is the new Black and have since been reading up on the real life of Piper Kerman. I’ve already found a copy of her memoir by the same name, so it is next on my reading list, but there are a few articles I’ve found which are good reading.

From Marie Claire: ‘Life Behind Bars’
From The New York Times: ‘Prison: Day 1’
From Marie Claire: ‘The Mistake That Nearly Cost Me Everything’

Finally here a few images of a bunny with tiger cubs from The Guardian this week. It’s like they want to play with it and not eat it! Nawwww, bunny.

May the odds be EVER in your favour.

April 25, 2012 / Lisa

I have recently become quite obsessed with The Hunger Games.

It wasn’t so much a jumping on the band wagon, but more the hype around the release of the movie is what prompted me to finally read the books.

I have had them sitting there for a few months now after being recommended by a friend to read them and I just hadn’t gotten around to it. But then the movie was released and I thought before anything gets spoiled, I should probably read the books to head off any unwanted spoilers.

So I started reading the first book. I finished it two days later. Then I started the second – Catching Fire – by the time a week had passed, all three had been devoured by my hungry little eyes.

There are not many books these days that actually get me to sit down and read that quickly. I like to take my time in reading a book, usually reading a chapter or two before bed each night.

However, for The Hunger Games, I just couldn’t put them down. There were several nights in that week that I stayed up late reading. I just wanted to know what happened next. Only a few other books have had the same treatment – Harry Potter and Twilight. When each HP book was released, I would read them in a weekend. With the Twilight books, once I had finally began reading them, on a recommendation of a friend, I had all four of them done and dusted within a week.

It is incredibly hard to find books like this nowadays. They are few and far between. And if they do exist, sooner or later Hollywood will come a-knocking and they will be brought to life on the silver screen.

Today, I went to see The Hunger Games movie. I even managed to drag Man Piece along with me. He even enjoyed it.

Now, I’m not the biggest advocate for books into movies, it seems these days that every movie made is based on a book. Can’t Hollywood come up with an original thought? No.

Anyway…

The movie of The Hunger Games was actually quite good. I didn’t feel they had missed anything out and they touched on themes that come up in the next two books. Although it would have been nice to include certain things from the book that were missed out, they weren’t that important and for the sake of time, continuity and cutting down, it was understandable. The major themes and events were covered and they didn’t get anything blatantly wrong.

One thought I did have when I was reading the books then looking at the film, was that I imagined Liam Hemsworth (Gale) as Peeta rather than Josh Hutcherson. But having watched the movie now, they do fit their roles and I can’t imagine it the other way.

[Sidenote: OMG JOSH HUTCHERSON IS THAT LITTLE KID FROM BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA.]

So, you could say I have actually jumped on the bandwagon, but what a good bandwagon to be on. I look forward to Catching Fire and Mockingjay being made into movies and I might even follow them through production.

Even if you hate following what other people do, Suzanne Collins’ novels are definitely worth a read. They are very big brother is watching you and could even say they are our generations’ version of 1984.

And I’m sure if someone were to study them a bit closer, they would find themes picking at our society today. *cough* survivor *cough* Not that I’m going to do that or anything… NOT AN ENGLISH NERD.