Out of Orbit - The Fantasy Cast

Progress on Out of Orbit is slow, but steady. I'm not at the point yet where I can say "the end is in sight", but I'm at the point where being able to say "the end is in sight" is in sight. Or something like that. :D

Anyhoo, I decided to mix things up and do something fun on the blog - list my choices for what actors would play which roles when the book is published and becomes wildly successful and the movie version is planned. (Which OBVIOUSLY is going to happen!) I've done these before, and some are easier than others. Sometimes I even have people/faces in mind from the get go to help with description. Way back when, I had no trouble at all picking actors for the main roles in The Edge of the Sphere. On the flip side, regular readers will know I've always struggled with selecting someone to portray Ro (from Disintegration and The Fall of the Midnight Scorpions), and it wasn't until the summer until I finally found an actress I thought could do her justice.

So let's see what we have so far.

Captain Jasmine Hale: For our kickass heroine, I've decided to go with Emily Blunt. I'll admit that I'm probably swayed by her role in Edge of Tomorrow, but I've liked her in other stuff, and she always seems like a cool person in interviews. Plus, she fits the physical description and I think she has the maturity to pull off the role, as Jasmine is already pretty established in her career and not, like, some sweet little young naive thing. (She's probably around my age, cough cough.)

Aras: In what's sure to be a blockbuster hit, budget will not be an issue, so it probably makes sense to use CGI for the alien species in the book. However! Real people are still required somewhere along the line. Ever since I put "This Nearly Was Mine" on the playlist, I've been hearing Aras's dialogue in Brian Stokes Mitchell's voice. (Even though Aras at one point says he doesn't have a good singing voice, and Brian Stokes Mitchell's singing voice is like chocolate-covered angels descending from heaven on golden unicorns, spreading light and love to all the world.) I guess he'd work as a face/body model, too, for our hero/leader of the fictional planet. Since Aras is about 600 years older than Jasmine, I'm not concerned about his age. ;)

Lieutenant Moore: I write often about how much I've been inspired by games, and the Mass Effect series is high on my list of favorites. If I'm going to write a pilot of a spaceship, there are bound to be similarities to Joker. And Joker means Seth Green. That was easy. Next!

Rana: Again, CGI here, but we need a person. I'm going to try to phrase this in a way that doesn't come off as negative, as I'm really not trying to be insulting here, but Uma Thurman's...shall we say, distinct features make me think of how I've described Rana. She's tall enough, anyway.

I still have a couple minor characters who I haven't paired up with real people yet, but this is still a fun list. Now back to writing! 

[Working Title]

I've written about my title woes before. Even when I don't have a title for the book I'm working on, I still need something by which to refer it when I'm talking with friends, other than "that book I'm working on". And even when I do have a title, sometimes a snappier name comes up in conversation and sticks.

When I was writing Disintegration, I was discussing it with one of my husband's friends. I'd joked that it was going to be like "50 Shades of Grey meets RoboCop" and he said, "so...RoboCock?" From then on, it was ALWAYS RoboCock in casual conversation. (Except when discussing the prequels, for some reason.) Hell, if it hadn't been such a dark book, I might have considered it for the real title! Actually, I'd be very very surprised to learn there wasn't already porn out there with that name.

Readers of this blog are familiar with the issues I had coming up with a title for Defying the Skies. I just referred to it as "the StS sequel" or even just "the sequel". Boobulon decided to refer to it as nothing but "Searching the Threesome" until I got off my butt and came up with a real title (which, as you'll remember, didn't happen until it was time for me to submit it). Ah, friends....

For my WIP, I actually do have a title picked out. However, somewhere along the line when talking about it with my friends, this book has turned into THE LESBIANS. It must be said just like that. It's not even The Lesbians. It's THE LESBIANS. And all I can think of now is this series of recurring sketches from Saturday Night Live:

If you're looking for a point to this post, other than the crazystupid things that go on in my head and the heads of my friends, uh...well...I guess it just goes along with my life philosophy not to take things too seriously. I know there are plenty of writers out there who consider their works SRS BZNS and woe unto those who do not place the same weight on the words that flow forth from their fingers. Personally, I think those people are just setting themselves up for disappointment, but who am I to judge?

(I'll leave the judging to ROBOCOCK! Pew pew pew!)