SUCCESS - I found the YA book I've been looking for almost 20 years!

Book lovers, you know my plight -

You read a book back in your teen years or in your 20s that you loved, or that affected you in some way, and yet the title of said book has maddeningly flitted right out of your brain. And no matter how many web inquiries, bookstore sleuthing, and questions thrown out to the ether asking - "Does anyone know the name of THIS BOOK?", you have come up empty.

Well, have faith dear friends. It may take years, but eventually someone, somewhere, out there on the interwebs will throw you a bone. The Internet is sometimes awesome, is what I'm trying to say.

My two-decades long search ended today when I randomly was on the Goodreads site and wandered into the "What's the name of this book?" forum, a place that I had been several times doing my elusive search for my YA novel. This time I decided to search the "Unsolved" folder to see if there were other people like me searching for this particular book. I did a keyword search of "Woods".

What happened next was something that only happens on internet forums - in response to a poster's inquiry about some book regarding twin teen siblings who get lost camping, a commenter had suggested that the name of the book that they were searching for was something called "Coming Back Alive". And then another commenter had jumped in and said that no, the first commenter was wrong, and proceeded to get into a drawn-out nerd fight over books and who had the most knowledge of YA books from the 80s and 90s.
Sometime during this back and forth one of the arguing commenters had posted a picture:

You guys? It was like the Earth broke in two and shooting sparks flew up into my brain. THAT'S THE COVER OF THE BOOK!! MY BOOK!! I FOUND IT!

So, thanks to a person being wrong about the answer to another searcher's book question, I indeed was able to solve the mystery that's been plaguing me for years. And I ordered the book off of Thriftbooks.com 2 seconds later. It's on it's way to me from Oregon and I can't wait to read it after all of these years.
I'm sure it won't live up to my expectations or remembrances, but I don't care. I've haven't been this excited in a long time!

OOTlander

I don't have Starz. It's pretty much the only premium cable channel that I don't have. And boy, have I really regretted not having it this year; the main reason being that I haven't been able to watch "Outlander" the series this season.
I got to watch the premiere episode of this season on the Starz website where they let non-subscribers watch for free. My friends John and Dan have Starz, and I got to see the second episode, but beyond that, besides resorting to illegal downloading methods - which I refuse to do, I'm going to have to wait months before I'll be able to watch this full series, and I'm pissed about it.

I even tried to buy the full season on iTunes and guess what? It's not for sale! Will it ever be? Other premium cable channels sell their shows, why not Starz? Maybe they're waiting for the full season to be over, which would mean that I would have to wait for some time. Grrrrr...

Meanwhile, the "mid-season" finale just happened this past weekend, and we had this scene:

VERY intense. In other news, Sam Heughan is effing hot!

It's here! It's FINALLY HERE!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

The day I've been waiting for, for nearly a year has arrived. The Hunger Games premieres tomorrow (well technically tonight at midnight).

I seriously haven't been this excited for a film to come to theaters since I was a teenager. And maybe not even then. Not only am I seeing "Hunger Games" at the midnight premier tonight, I'm also seeing it on Saturday morning. I am a huge dork. But I don't care.

ONE MONTH AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

TICKETS HAVE BEEN PURCHASED!

I can't express how excited I am for this movie. Or maybe you can tell my enthusiasm from all of the exclamation points and capital letters?

Next year, my birthday is going to be SO awesome!

Lionsgate just released the promotional posters for the upcoming film adaptation of The Hunger Games. I'm still not sure how I feel about Lenny Kravitz as Cinna, but I'm still super excited about this movie and can hardly wait for next year.

Casting "The Hunger Games" - If I Ruled The World

Steve Granitz/Wire Image

As everyone on Earth pretty much knows, Lionsgate is furiously scrambling trying to finish choosing their cast for the soon to start production of the film adaption of one of the my favorite book series The Hunger Games. This morning it was announced that Jennifer Lawrence (above) has landed the role of Katniss. Although the producers ultimately didn't go with my first choice of Hailee Steinfeld who was the perfect age, coloring, and build for Katniss, I understand why they went with the older Lawrence. Hailee's age would've prevented her from working a full shooting day and would've made the casting of Peeta tougher. Let's face it folks, there aren't any good male actors that could handle Peeta that are under the age of 18; and casting someone older than that to be romantic with Steinfeld would've felt wrong. And Jennifer Lawrence is truly a great actress and supposedly gave an amazing audition for Katniss that impressed everybody. She was certainly gritty enough in Winter's Bone, and I think if they darkened her hair she'll do just fine.

Real or not real? The current front-runner for the role of Peeta is hottie boombalotty Hunter Parrish. I'm fine with this choice, especially since Jennifer's been cast.

I do think that Parrish would be better suited for the role of Finnick Odair (and it would mean we'd get to see more of Hunter's delicious skin), but he's a great actor and has the chops to handle the role of the book's hero.

What about the other hero in the book, hometown hunk Gale? Well there's several guys rumored to be up for it including Adam Gregory from the new (horrendous) 90210 and an unknown (at least to me) Thomas Mcdonell who in my opinion certainly looks like the way Gale is described in the book, except for the eye color. Strangely, I'm not as invested in the casting of Gale as I am in other characters of the book.

For example, I would boycott the films full stop if they didn't cast black or dark-brown skinned actors for the roles of Rue and Thresh. But I keep imagining nightmare scenarios where Willow Smith gets the role of Rue. I mean think about it, she's kind of perfect for the role isn't she? Ugggh, I want shoot myself for even putting that thought out there in the ether.

And then there's the pivotal role of Hamish. A man who is supposed to be in his late 30s/early 40s who's been totally ravaged by drink and depression. Ever since Entertainment Weekly did a poll about who should play him way back in August and mentioned Robert Downey Jr. as a choice, I have been kind of obsessed with this idea. He would do f*cked up drunk so well. But still be able to pull off Hamish's sense of humor, while keeping it dark. I'm sure there's no way that RDJ has been approached for this but he's seriously the only person I can picture now, even when I recently reread the last two books in the series. I guess I just ultimately hope that the producers and director Gary Ross are thinking seriously and smartly about the casting choices for ALL of the roles, not just Katniss and Peeta. Everyone's important.

Here We Go!!

I'm participating in this year's National Novel Writing Month contest, aka NaNoWriMo. The goal is to complete a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Yes, that's right - write a novel in just 30 days!
If it sounds daunting, it is. But I'm going into this thinking about writing 1,500 to 2,000 words a day and trying to tell a somewhat coherent story; I'm not attempting to write the next great American novel by November 30.
So far so good; I've written about 2,000 words today. I have a basic idea of the story I want to tell but I know that this has to be my focus for the rest of this week or this enterprise will go nowhere fast. I've started a story framework outline to help, so we'll see what happens. I'll try to update everyone on my progress here.

Wish me luck!

Movie Review for late October 2010

I finally got around to seeing the film adaptation of one of my favorite books by Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go. As far as book-into-movie adaptations go, it was really well done by director Mark Romanek despite the fact that he's responsible for one of my most hated movies of all time (One-Hour Photo).
It stars a triumvirate of young British stars, Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield, a young man who is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors to come along in some time. The openness and beauty of his face in this film is almost heart wrenching; his face displays the perfect amount of naivete and soulfulness.  I don't know how he managed to express so much in his eyes and sweet smile, but Garfield's performance steals the show.
Carey Mulligan was also brilliant, and makes me forgive her for doing that Wall Street sequel and for dating Shia LeBouf. And despite my hatred for Knightley, she was such a perfect choice for tragic Ruth that I can't complain at all.
My New Plaid Pants blogger JA does such a phenomenal job in his review of the film, that I feel a little unworthy to say anything more about it. But I will add that while Never Let Me Go is a total downer of a film and will have you leaving the theater teary-eyed, it's so breathtaking, filled with such great performances, and such good storytelling that it really shouldn't be missed. Go see it while you still can! But bring tissues.

JD Salinger just became extra extra reclusive

Famous author J.D. Salinger passed away from natural causes yesterday, at the age of 91 at his home in Cornish, NH.

I'll confess - I've never understood all of the hulabaloo about The Catcher in the Rye. It's a fairly well written coming-of-age novel, but I never got what people loved so much about it. Or how it could have such a powerful and profound influence on so many people in both good ways (several prominent and accomplished authors list it as their favorite book), and tragic ways (the most infamous being Marc David Chapman citing it as an inspiration for him to kill John Lennon).

The character Holden Caulfield is a brat, and not even really an interesting one. I've only read the novel once, in 9th grade as assigned reading for English. I recall most of my class mates LOVING the book and getting caught up in all the fervor that so many people generate about Catcher. But I just wasn't moved.

Later in college I read Franny & Zooey and liked that novel a little better but it still wasn't earth shattering. And don't get me started on the boringness that is the Salinger short story collection Nine Stories. I never did finish it.

Anyway in the next few days I expect to be inundated with famous people gushing and reminiscing about how Catcher saved their life or whatever. I'm more interested in finding out if crazy recluse Salinger had in fact been writing non-stop all these years and whether there's hundreds of unpublished manuscripts stuffed in his mattress or what not.

Also, any new stories about Salinger being bat-shit crazy and sitting around in his bathrobe Howard Hughes style would be appreciated.