Petty Jealousy and Other Frailties

The Hunger Games movie opens soon, complete with screaming fans and a bazillion peripheral products. Mark my words: by Christmas we’ll be buying our children Katniss Everdeen bow and arrow sets. As much as I admire Suzanne Collins’ YA novels, she’s making it harder for me to see anything except green.
Do I sound petty?
Of course I do. Here I am, stuck in the mind-numbing mid list, lost in a sea of writers who are all just plain hungry. Hungry to finagle a sale. Hungry to outsell their meager advances. Hungry for the Google Alert to finally shout their names.
Wasn’t it John Steinbeck who said that compared to writing, horse racing is a steady, more stable profession?
I’m as crazy for the writing life as the next writer, but blockbusters like The Hunger Games have a tendency to suck all the air out of the room. Still, I shouldn’t be so grouchy about another writer’s success. After all, Collins is keeping readers interested in reading. Well when they aren’t screaming in the movie queue that is.
And this small fact–that big names keep readers reading–is supposed to make the rest of us see a teensy pinpoint of light at the end of a very long tunnel. As long as we keep writing and hoping, one of us may yet stand atop the winner’s pedestal, throwing kisses to the adoring crowd. And at that point, those of us still caught in the heaving masses will turn on that writer. Hunt her down. Make her suffer. Rail about the injustice of it all.
I have no sane reason why, but I still long to become that writer. They’ll have to pry my pencil from my cold dead hands. I may as well join the rest of the world in lauding The Hunger Games, while secretly plotting to become the Next Big Thing.
By the way, that sucking sound you hear is all the other-writers- who-are-not-Collins gasping for breath. We’ve all just had a shot in the arm, courtesy of Katniss Everdeen.

About Linda S. Clare

I'm an author, speaker, writing coach and mentor. I teach both fiction and nonfiction writing at Lane Community College and in the doctoral program as expert writing advisor for George Fox University. I love helping writers improve their craft and I'm both an avid reader and writer of stories about those with wounded hearts.

2 comments on “Petty Jealousy and Other Frailties

  1. Woo Hoo! Love it. Honest and funny and true. Linda, you should be the next big thing. I would tell you that I don’t want to be, which is actually partly true, but you probably wouldn’t believe me and it would sound like an attempt to seem humble so I won’t bother. Ha. Can’t wait to see the movie. I have loved Jennifer Lawrence since Winters Bone. Love to you, funny girl.

  2. Thanks, m’dear. I hope YOU are going to be the Next Big Thing and I mean that in the best possible way. I too love Jennifer Lawrence and I loved Hunger Games too. And I can’t wait to get my very own Katniss Everdeen bow and arrow set. ~Linda

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