No idea is too lame for Hollywood. With the release of “Battleship,” board-game-”inspired” movies are poised to be the next hot thing in Tinseltown. In fact, there’s already a Candyland film in the works with Adam Sandler attached. (Apparently Eddie Murphy was too busy working on a Chutes and Ladders project.) So there’s no time to waste. Here are my lame pitches for the next “great” board-game movie.

THE HUNGRY HUNGRY HIPPOS GAMES… “May the hippos never be hungry…for you!”

In a grim, post-apocalyptic North America, 24 attractive teens are chosen to compete in the Hungry Hungry Hippos Games. The nationally televised event (which airs after “The Real Housewives of District 1″) pits the youngsters against each other — and four extremely hungry hippos — in a fight to the death. In the end, only one will survive (unless that rule needs to be changed to accommodate the plot). Torn between love and an unwillingness to move her facial muscles, Cactus Evergreen (Elle Fanning) is forced to rely on her hippo-wrangling experience and marble-playing skills to survive. Will Cactus lose her marbles or end up hippo food? Co-starring Angus T. Jones as Cactus’s love interest/rival.

OPERATION: THE ORGAN COLLECTOR… “No one’s bread basket is safe!”

A serial killer (Steve Buscemi) with a thing for human organs is terrorizing Chicago. Nicknamed the Vivisectionist, the psycho removes the organs of his unwilling “patients” with a pair of oversized tweezers, first taking the Adam’s Apple of a high-powered attorney and then the broken heart of a prostitute. Detective Jack Gomez (Bruce Willis) is hot on the Vivisectionist’s trail when he discovers the harvested stomach of a singer — filled with butterflies! Gomez has a theory: the Vivisectionist is collecting the organs from the popular board game Operation! Things get personal when Gomez’s daughter (Selena Gomez), an aspiring stand-up comedian, goes missing. The Vivisectionist needs only one more organ to complete his ghoulish collection: A funny bone!

CRANIUM: BRAIN FARTS… “A brain is a terrible thing…to waste!”

A struggling actor (Jason Segel), an eccentric sculptor (Paul Rudd), a cocky beatboxer (Jack Black) and an idiot savant (Zach Galifianakis) try to save their favorite coffee shop/car wash from foreclosure by competing in a no-holds-barred Cranium tournament. Dubbed the Brain Farts, the four misfits must push their unique talents to the limit, but can they do it without killing each other? It won’t be easy. The reigning Cranium champs, the Brainiacs, are also the bullies who tormented the Brain Farts in grade school and, in an ironic twist, also the bankers foreclosing on their favorite coffee shop/car wash!

TROUBLE: POP GOES THE WORLD… “You want trouble? You got it!”

Earthquakes! Tsunamis! Gyllenhaal! When the Earth starts a-quaking, the world’s leaders come a-calling for disgraced geophysicist Rick Mancuso (Jake Gyllenhaal) — the planet’s only hope. A man harboring a dark secret, Mancuso has just 24 hours to discover what’s causing the Earth’s core to keep “popping.” If he doesn’t, the planet will be knocked off its axis — and that won’t be good. As Mancuso’s quest takes him across the globe, he must come to grips with his troubled past and the young daughter (Miranda Cosgrove) he left behind. Featuring the song “Pop Goes My Heart” by Taylor Swift.

MONOPOLY: OCCUPY THE WORLD… “Pass Go, collect the world!”

The Top 1% has just become the Top 0.00000000001%. With the world on the brink of financial collapse and the gap between rich and poor wider than ever, the Top 1% makes a desperate bid to secure its vast fortunes. Somehow (radiation?) combining the DNA and bank accounts of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, they create the Ultimate Fat Cat (played by John Goodman in a career-defining role). But the UFC’s power grows exponentially and quickly controls all the Earth’s resources, governments, corporations and four railways. The 99.9%’s only hope is a former hotel owner from Baltic Avenue (Chris Evans) whose only possessions are a vintage roadster and his lucky thimble. Co-starring Ian McKellan as The Banker.

I’m all about time management. It’s probably because I enjoy wasting so much time that when I need to get things done, I need to get them done as quickly as possible. So I was excited when I stumbled upon this YouTube video. It allows you to watch 56 episodes of the original “Star Trek” series all at once — with sound. (It’s the first two seasons except the pilot was replaced by the first episode of the third season because of time constraints.)

Watching it is a totally mesmerizing experience. Kinda like listening to William Shatner’s music.

DeAnna Knippling first came on my radar with the 2010 publication of “Choose Your Doom: Zombie Apocalypse,” a choose-your-own-adventure featuring the undead. I was an instant fan! Since then, I’ve learned that DeAnna is one of the most hard-working writers out there and immune to rejection. (That’s a real superpower!) Her latest novel is “Alien Blue,” a science fiction tale about extraterrestrials and beer. Check it out!

I recently talked to her about writing, social media and, of course, zombies…

You’re an incredibly prolific writer. How do you keep going?

Being prolific is a skill that you can develop as an author. One, write every day. (Sorry; you’ve heard this advice before, but it’s true.) Two, develop writing speed by observing how many words you can write in an hour, setting deadlines much closer than you think you can reach, and doing crazy things like NaNoWriMo. Three, and this is the part that most people miss when they try to do this, allow that writing is not the sanest activity in the world and your normal judgment process is flawed when it comes to writing, so there’s no point in second-guessing yourself while you write. Your internal editor will be there, and you can’t shut it off, but you can ignore it and play in your sandbox anyway.

What is your writing schedule like? Your writing process?

I freelance, so I’ll tell you before-freelancing and after-freelancing.

Before freelancing: I started out writing once in a while, then built up to 100 words a day (no joke, I was so proud), and gradually increased my word count. I discovered that I had to have days where I take a break — not from writing per se, but from whatever Big Project I’m working on. Blog, write book reviews, work on something completely different…whatever. Then I did my first NaNoWriMo (in July, because I was afraid I’d fail). That was a huge boost, and I knew that I could write 1.5-2K a day without killing myself (although I did irritate my family). Eventually I got it up to 1K a day, average.

Then I went freelance, which was a whole new set of chops to build, and I spent a lot of time trying to learn how to balance writing and business (business likes to take over). I kept doing NaNoWriMos and built a speed of about 1K an hour over two years, which I can hit now regularly except on this romance that I’m writing, because I don’t write a lot of romance, and that’s about 500-750 wph. With horror and other things I’m closer to 1.5K.

Trying out multiple things to balance out writing and the business side of things has led me to realize that I, personally, have to do my fiction first before anything else. I always have a resistance to going into story world, because my sane brain is terrified that I won’t come back; everything I do in story world points to crazy (hallucinations, multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia). So I make bargains with the sane part of my brain: a word count or a time cutoff. I can only write so much, and then I have to come back. I usually write on my stuff from eight to noon now (in 50-minute writing, 10-minute-break cycles), then switch over to freelance writing, formatting, answering emails, etc. Weekends I spend with my family and tie up whatever loose ends I couldn’t get to during the week.

This is a big issue for me. How do you decide when your story is finished?

If you’re talking about when it’s good enough, I don’t. I let the readers do that — either my first readers (critique group and others), the editors when they either accept or reject, or readers for my self-published stuff. If people don’t like it or it’s not selling, I look at it again. Learning to trust your readers is another skill you can pick up…mostly by giving them a chance to tell you what they think, and not defending yourself from their comments. Part of developing as a writer is putting your work out in the world and getting feedback.

Not that you have to do what your feedback tells you. But you do have to listen.

If you mean, “I just write by the seat of my pants and I’m never sure when to stop,” then you have to do some work studying plot to do :)

Do you have any tricks for overcoming writer’s block?

Writer’s block is usually one of two things: one, the sane part of my brain scared to go back into a story, scared that I won’t be able to finish it or that it’ll suck when I do; two, I’m headed down the wrong path, and my story brain wants to go somewhere else. In both cases, the answer is to listen to story brain. Whatever it is that you do to get to your story brain, do that. Write at 2 a.m. Write listening to special music. Delete the last page and rewrite it. Brainstorm. Imagine that you’re watching a movie…and come up with the most predictable plot and don’t do that.

Writing is about accessing a crazy place in your brain, and nobody else’s tricks will work for you…unless they do. You just have to keep trying new tricks until you find ones that work more or less reliably.

My tricks? Set a deadline. Set a goal. Try something foolhardy.

What is your secret to dealing with rejection?

Soak up so much of it that it seems normal :) It’s just another skill.

How has social media helped your writing career? Hurt it?

Well, it’s a time suck. But I do enjoy it…I don’t know. It’s a good resource for testing ideas. A good way to stay bathed in what’s going on around me. Writers are addicted to praise, really, so it can be a quick fix when you really need someone to say you don’t suck, too.

It’s important, especially for an indie writer, to build a online network. What are three things a beginning writer should keep in mind when starting their platform?

1. You’re asking people to give you their money. Give them things…share yourself. No guilt trips, no begging, no self-pity: just awesomeness as you see it.

2. It’s slow. The new kid doesn’t become the most popular kid in class just because they’re new. Make the first move to make new friends.

3. Don’t force yourself. You have to do it consistently for a long time, so don’t push yourself to do more than you want to do. Besides, it’s the people who fill up your stream with stupid crap that get booted. It’s better to tweet less and do it well than more — as long as you’re doing it regularly.

Do you have any advice for beginning writers that you wished you received when you were starting out?

When it comes to advice, I tend to need the two-by-four to the head, so these are pretty direct and tactless…this *is* the advice I wish I’d received. At a bare minimum. So when I say “you,” I mean “me.”

1. As a creative type, the way you like to spend your free time is what you should create. Don’t focus on poetry if you never read anybody else’s, for example. If you spend most of your time watching TV, then writing fiction is not your game.

2. You have to write about a million words before you start to get published regularly, ten million to get to the national/international level. It’s doable, but stop screwing around.

3. Don’t sum up. Write what’s happening now for the characters. They can let their thoughts ramble…but it has to happen in real time. You have to be really, really good to write good backstory or to sum up. So skip it until you get that good, like another 30 years down the line (still learning this one).

4. Any writing program that isn’t based on you writing over 1K a day is a waste of your time and is probably mostly there to teach writing professors, not working writers. And if it’s a bunch of wannabes and people taking the class just to get credits they need *and* they get to criticize your stories? RUN. Real writers don’t write by committee, and they don’t write by rewriting, and they don’t write by talking about other newbies’ writing.

5. This attitude that some books are worth more than others is bullshit. Does it get the job done for the readers? Yes? Then it’s a good book. Conversely, write what you want. I guarantee that if you write it well enough, there will be someone as demented out there as you who wants to read it. Literature and hack fiction both boil down to “Did the readers like it?” Read both.

6. It’s not about someone saying you’re worthy to be a writer. There’s no prize for “being a writer.” It’s about the books and about taking someone’s brain and putting it where they want it to go, maybe even challenging them to go a little further. But you? If you can’t get the job done without wasting the reader’s time, go home. “But it gets good in chapter three.” Hey, you just stole two chapters from your readers…jerk.

Do you remember the moment when you decided to commit to a writing career?

Yes. I was bored of being a technical editor…and trying to convince myself that I wanted to do more on the computer side of things. After beating my head bloody studying for A+ Certification, I was getting fed up with computers, though. Finally I cut loose one day in front of my husband and said, “You know what I really want? If I had the money, I would quit *today* and write full time.” “Why don’t you?” he said. I just about passed out. I saved up for the next six months and then quit. I never did take the A+ exam.

Bonus question: If you were a zombie, which movie, book, TV show or video game would you like to roam around in?

Probably “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” Because really, even zombies want to be understood. I don’t really want to infect the world, and I can pick up brains at the butcher’s. Although I have to admit that I have an imp of the perverse that wants to wreck almost every movie with zombies. Batman and zombies! Really I want a zombie movie where the movie set of a zombie movie is infested with zombies. “The Sound of Music” and zombies! My mind wanders during movies, although it rarely does during books. Kung fu zombies. “Risky Business” and zombies! Ferriss Bueller and zombies…yes, the world is ready for a John Hughes movie with zombies in it. Cats and zombies. Freddy vs. zombies. Camelot and zombies.

Website: deannaknippling.com

Sure Friday the 13th is unlucky — and it’s really unlucky if you happen to be a camper — but what did Friday the 13th have to do with the Jason Voorhees slasher series? It wasn’t played up much, but the date was significant because Jason was born on Friday the 13th (June 13, 1946, to be exact). Unfortunately, little Jason died — for the first time — and the date became even unluckier as his mom returned to Crystal Lake on his birthday for a little revenge. And that’s the beginning and end of the significance of the date in the series. But who really cares what Friday the 13th has to do with the franchise? What we want is bloodshed and the occasional nude boob.

Come with me now on a journey through the life and times of everyone’s favorite hockey-mask-wearing killer…

Friday the 13th (1980)
	Notable for featuring 21-year-old Kevin Bacon. The Six Degrees actor was separated from his vocal cords when — no, not Jason — Mrs. Voorhees drove an arrow through his neck. Mrs. V, of course, was seeking revenge for the drowning of her son. The movie cost $700,000 to make and earned $40 million. So, yeah, there were gonna be sequels.

Friday the 13th II (1981)
	So, yeah, they made a sequel. Mommy Voorhees is dead and it turns out Jason didn’t drown in that lake after all. (So why was Mrs. Voorhees on a killing spree again?) We’re introduced to the adult Jason, who wears a pillow case over his head. The movie features the first — but certainly not the last — time somebody impersonates Jason’s mom to escape death.

Friday the 13th III (1982)
	This movie is significant for two reasons. 1) It was in 3-D (oh my god, duck, that yo-yo’s gonna poke my eye out!). 2) Jason finds his trademark hockey mask. At the time it was the highest grossing sequel in history at $37 millon. So, obviously, the filmmakers would want to end the series. Let’s see how that turns out…

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
	Final chapter, huh? Not letting death stop him, Jason rises from the dead, returns to Crystal Lake, and encounters a nemesis so deadly, so ingenious his name can only be…Corey Feldman. Feldman, who played Tommy, outwits the killer by shaving his head and pretending to be Jason Junior. Then the 12-year-old hacks him to death. No wonder Corey went into rehab.

Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
	Corey Feldman reprised his role from the previous movie, but because he was busy filming “The Goonies,” he was limited to a cameo. Tommy is now in a halfway house where a psycho killer is on the loose. After a few teases that it’s Jason returned from the gave, it’s revealed that the killer is actually a guy named Roy who dressed up like Jason. Major waste of time!

Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives (1986)
	Tommy sticks around for a third movie (now played by Thom Mathews). Tommy is still plagued by Jason. So, even though the killer is dead, he decides to dig him up and destroy the body. A bolt of lightning revives Jason — and here we go again. Tommy ends the nightmare by chaining Jason to the bottom of Crystal Lake. Body count: 18

Friday the 13th VII: The New Blood (1988)
	This was to be the movie that pit Jason against Freddy. But when Paramount and New Line couldn’t work out the deal, Jason went up against Tina Shepard, a telekinetic teen. It would take Jason 15 years to meet Freddy. This movie marks Kane Hodder’s first appearance as Jason. Body count: 16.

Friday the 13th VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
	It took him 43 years, but Jason finally took a vacation from Crystal Lake. And like the Muppets before him he took Manhattan. Unlike the Muppets, he killed everyone in sight. Jason is resurrected, boards a boat heading for the Big Apple, kills everyone onboard, then pursues the survivors into the sewers. He’s undone when the sewers are washed out with nuclear waste.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
	Jason’s next trip is to hell. Well, not really. But it is the final Friday, right? Wrong. Turns out Jason can be destroyed only by another Voorhees. Luckily, there’s one left, after Jessica Kimble discovers her mother was Jason’s unknown sister. In the end Freddy Krueger’s hand reaches up and pulls Jason into hell. It’ll be 10 more years before the real showdown.

Jason X (2002)
	Now things get really stupid! This was the longest time between “Friday the 13th” movies. A whole nine years without Jason in theaters and this is what they came up with — Jason in Space! In the year 2455 Jason is revived from cryonic suspension and he yet again kills a bunch of young, sexy dopes. Body count: 28

Freddy Vs. Jason (2003)
	Finally! After years in development hell, Freddy Krueger got to battle Jason. But Freddy’s stuck in real hell. He conjures up Jason and tricks him into killing the kids on Elm Street, so they’ll remember Freddy. When Freddy returns to Elm Street he tries to stop Jason and a battle to end all battles ensues. Dracula and the Frankenstein monster roll over in their graves.

Friday the 13th (2009)

Time for a reboot! After 11 movies, the franchise got restarted in 2009. The big problem with that? The flick didn’t add much to the franchise — except CGI effects, sexier stars, horror porn and Michael Bay as producer. Yeah, we’ve all seen that before. Critics hated it and the box office was ho-hum, but we probably haven’t seen the last of Jason. A sequel is in the works — in 3-D. Now that’s original!