I found my leading man . . .ehem, for my novel, that is

I come from a theatre/acting background. Because of this, when I'm writing, I like to picture my scenes as actual "scenes" from a play or movie. I think about the dialogue, blocking, body language, etc as if the characters were right in front of me acting out the scene, and I'm the director. (Or better yet, like I'm the lead actress.) I've always hoped that this gives me a bit of an edge when it comes to writing dynamic dialogue and action. But at the same time, it also means I have my whole novel mapped out in my mind as a movie . . .and I'm dying to see it on the big screen.

I know, I know, I'm getting way ahead of myself--after all, I haven't even sold the manuscript yet--but it's perfectly normal for a girl to cast a fictitious movie based on her unsold novel in her head, right? RIGHT?!

So for a while now, I've been on the lookout for actors to play my main characters should the day ever come that The Dark Divine be made into a movie. The only problem is that it's hard to find real people who resemble the made-up characters that exist only in my brain--and on 270+ pages of manuscript paper. Especially since most of my characters are "mix" of different people.
Take Jude (my main character's brother) for instance. He's kind of a Tom Welling (guy from Smallville) meets a young Tom Cruise (pre-crazy-couch-jumping-phase) sort of guy:




And then there's Daniel (Jude's ex-best-friend and the guy Grace has always been in love with). He's always been a kind-of, sort-of, almost but not quite, teen-age version of Spike (as played by James Marsters in Buffy) but with long, dark hair. (Oh, and Daniel's not a vampire. . .but he his a paranormal creature . . .I'm just not telling you what kind.)



So you can see my casting dilemma, right? Tom W+Tom C doesn't actually exist, so calling him in for an audition probably wouldn't go over all that well. And since James Marsters is now in his late 40s, and I really don't have the energy to invent a time machine (what with being so overwhelmed by the shopping trips with the hopped up monkeys) he's really not the right guy to play the part of my 18-year-old male lead. Plus, I have no idea what he even looked like as a teenager--so the time machine might be a total waist of time and money anyway.

So alas, the parts for my male leads were still un-cast . . .or at least they were until I was watching Friday Night Lights with hubby the other night and Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) looked out at me from the tv screen with his soulful yet troubled eyes, and I sat up and and shouted, "Holy Crap! It's him! He's Daniel!" Even hubby looked at him and said, "Whoa, I think you're right."



So what's the verdict, friends? I mean, what teen-aged girl wouldn't want to try to save this boy's soul?

I may even have to cast his co-star, Scott Porter in my movie.



He makes a pretty good replacement for "the Toms" don't you think?

Okay, so somebody had better make my book into a movie fast. I mean, these "teen" actors are probably already in their late twenties. Tick tock, tick tock. Perhaps I'll have to contact Ted with my brilliant casting choices so he can start putting out some feelers in the biz.

Ha ha.

Just Kidding.

Not really.

Okay, seriously, I'm just joking.

Hey does anyone have Taylor Kitsch's phone number?