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The alarm buzzed loudly the following morning, telling me it was time to get up and face that damned computer screen again. Sherman was curled around my feet, in his usual spot, sound asleep, despite the noise from the insistent alarm. I reached over and shut it off, blinking at the sunlight that was pouring through the windows.

As I made my way to the shower, I thought sadly of the lack of pages I’d turned out the day before, chiding myself for not being more creative. Most of the little bit I had managed to write was pathetic, and I’d erased it after one reading, not even bothering to try and fix it. I cringed as I stepped under the warm water, thinking of some of the mundane dialogue I’d had the audacity to commit to the page before getting rid of it permanently. I was now only two pages ahead of where I’d been at the start of the previous day, and I wasn’t even sure I liked those pages.

And to top it all off, I had a meeting with the Warner Brothers people to look forward to. As I lathered the shampoo into my long, auburn hair, I thought about what I’d say to them, and to the actor I was supposed to be speaking with as well. I had tons of magazines delivered to my flat every week, like People Magazine and US Weekly, so I knew who most of the current hotshots were, and I was curious to see who would be on the other end of the phone that afternoon. Olivia hadn’t said who he was, only that he was a big name. I didn’t even know which part he was interested in, since there were three major male parts in After Midnight.

I toweled myself off, cringing as my fingertips grazed the scarred flesh on my back, and went back into my bedroom to dress. My wardrobe was nothing fancy, since no one ever saw me, so I selected a dark blue track suit, much like the one I’d worn the day before, with a yellow t-shirt and my favourite pair of trainers. At least when I was fully dressed, with my hair and teeth brushed, I felt like I could accomplish something. Laying around in my pajamas all day was not going to get my book written.

Feeling the gentle rumbling of hunger in my stomach, I made my way to the kitchen for some breakfast. I noticed that I was almost out of milk, and my bread supply was getting low, so I jotted them down on the list on the fridge door to remind me to order them later. I had all of my groceries delivered from a little family-run grocery store down the street. They were really good about bringing me whatever I needed, when I needed it, but I usually put in my order about once a week. I didn’t want to take advantage of a good thing.

I popped some bread in the toaster and poured myself a glass of juice, not really feeling like making a big breakfast. As I waited for the toast to pop, I fed Sherman and re-filled his water dish, noticing that he’d slunk into the kitchen and was looking up at me expectantly. I was just spreading peanut butter and strawberry jam on my toast when the phone rang. I glanced at the clock.

“Hi, Mom,” I whispered to myself as I took my toast into the living room. It was barely nine o’clock, and she was the only person I knew who would call me this early.

“Are you awake?” she trilled when I picked up the phone. “I never know if you’re going to sleep in, you know.”

“Yes, Mom,” I sighed, sitting cross-legged on the sofa with my toast and my juice. “I’m just having breakfast. What’s up?”

“What are you having?” she asked suspiciously, as though she expected me to say something ludicrous like chocolate ice cream or vanilla pudding. I swear, you have those things for breakfast once in your life, and some people can never let you live them down.

“Toast and juice,” I said, trying to maintain my patience. I loved my mother, I really did, but she had this annoying habit of nagging me about every little thing I put in my mouth, telling me I’d never ’slim down’ unless I basically gave up food all together. It was easy for her to say, having never weighed more than 110lbs in her whole life, including when she’d been pregnant with me.

“Whole wheat toast?” she quizzed me, “Low-fat juice?”

“Mom, how the hell can juice be low-fat?” I snapped, taking an extra big bite of my white toast, just to spite her. “Seriously, it’s orange juice. Get over it.”

“And I bet you’ve got that disgusting sugary jam on there, too, don’t you?” she continued, as though I hadn’t spoken. “Peyton, this is why you’re not a tiny person. You should really see a nutritionist, dear.”

“How about you see one and tell me what he says, okay?” I said, thinking it was way too early to be putting up with her crap already. “So, is there a particular reason you called, or are you just making sure I’m not the size of a whale yet?”

“Your father’s lawyers sent me some rather unpleasant papers this morning, and I wanted to hear a friendly voice,” she said, her voice turning pouty, as it always did when she wanted attention.

“So you called me why?” I asked, unable to keep the sarcasm behind my teeth. I couldn’t help it, she just annoyed me more than any person I’d ever known.

“Is it so unreasonable to ask my only daughter, the person who gave me my first stretch marks, for a little comfort when her father is being an ass?” she snapped, the poutiness replaced by frustration.

“First of all, you’ve never had a stretch mark a day in your life,” I said, going into our practiced routine. She always laid the same guilt trip on me, expecting me to tell her she’d never been fat, like I was. I never had to say that part, but it was always implied. “And second, why is it my problem if Dad’s being a prick? You knew he was one when you married him, remember? Or at least, that’s what you keep telling me.”

“Yes, well, a woman will put up with quite a lot to get a new car every year, and a vacation to Europe.” She paused. “Although, now that we live in London, the second one doesn’t mean as much does it?”

“Not all women are so delightfully shallow, Mom,” I said, my voice sickeningly sweet. “That’s something only you can lay claim to. Now, seriously, I have to get to work. What do you want?”

“Oh really, Peyton,” she sighed. “You work at home, does it matter what time you start?” She spoke of my writing as though it was an inconvenient pedicure appointment or something that I could just change at will.

“It’s called a routine, Mom,” I said, fighting to keep my patience with her. The last thing I needed before my phone meeting that afternoon was a big blowout with my mom. I had those at least once a week, I figured it could wait another day. “I have to stick with a set schedule, or I’ll never get anything done.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” she admitted. “Well, I won’t keep you, but I just wanted to tell you that your father is on a rampage about my support payments again, so you may get a nasty phone call later.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, the sarcasm just dripping from my words. “I wish you two could keep your shit to yourselves. You know I don’t take sides, since neither one of you are my favourite people.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say to the woman who carried you for nine months, and then spent eighteen hours trying to get your big head into this world,” Mom practically grunted, as though she were reliving the experience, which, knowing her, she probably was, just to gain some sympathy.

“Uh-huh,” I said, giving her my bored voice, just to piss her off. “Okay, well, I have to go and force some ideas out of this big head of mine, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow. And don’t forget, worrying about Dad is only going to give you more unsightly wrinkles.” I put the phone down before she could answer. I could just see her fuming away in her too-large-for-one-person house, before running to check the mirror to make sure said wrinkles hadn’t magically appeared.

I finished my breakfast, put my dirty dishes in the sink, grabbed a cup of coffee, and trudged into my office, dread forming in the pit of my stomach. When the ideas flowed freely, I normally couldn’t wait to get to work, but that was definitely not the case that day. I was trying to kill off a main character in such a way that didn’t seem hokey or staged, and from the troubles I was having, it really seemed like the character himself just didn’t want to be killed. There just wasn’t another option, based on the plot I’d outlined before I’d started writing, though, so whether he liked it or not, he had to go.

The idea of a fictional character resisting his own death by giving me writer’s block made me smile as I turned on the computer. The fact that my characters became such a part of my reality while I was writing about them still amazed me. I could hear their voices and see their faces in my head, and sometimes I caught myself talking out loud, just to hear what their conversations would sound like. I always felt a period of mourning when I finished a book, because those characters had to be put to rest, and I had to move on to the next ones. It felt like I was losing a friend each time I finished a book, since I’d spent the better part of a year with these people. They were definitely more real to me than the few friends I had, and I actually preferred their fictional realities, though sometimes kind of grim, to my own, admittedly dull, one.

Thinking about my characters led me back to After Midnight, to the possible actors who would do well with those characters. They were especially dear to me, because they were my first, and they embodied so many of my own emotions. The male lead was Jesse, a rather careless man, in his late-twenties to early-thirties, I’d never really specified, whose life is turned upside down when the woman he loves is in a (shock, shock, surprise) car accident. He’s a very tortured character, with a very dark soul, stemming from some not-so-nice activities in his past, and he feels very deeply that his girlfriend’s accident is some form of cosmic punishment for his bad deeds. But there’s an innocence about him, too, that has to come through all of that anger and pain. It took me months to get the nuances of his character just right, and I was hoping that whoever was going to play him would be up to and worthy of the task.

The second main male character was called Cameron, and his daughter was in the car accident, so he was an older man. He’s much like my own father, which is to say, he’s an asshole to the highest degree. He spends most of the book wishing his daughter would just die so he can claim the life insurance, but he spends some time with Jesse, whom he despises, and begins to see his daughter as he should. The speech he gives just before she dies is heart-breaking, if I do say so myself, and I actually had tears streaming down my face as I wrote it.

And yes, Katie, the girl in the accident,l does die. The only way I could make the lives of the people around her okay again was to have her pass away from her injuries. Jesse, though he loves her madly, begins to have a phone relationship with a mysterious woman, all of which take place on his cell phone, after midnight (hence the title), and as he talks to this woman more and more, he becomes obsessive about her, and can’t seem to get her out of his mind. He has no idea who she is, just that her name is Lucy, and that she ignites more passion in him than anyone else, including Katie, ever has.

That’s where the third male lead comes in. He’s a detective who thinks Katie’s accident may not have been just an accident, and believes that Lucy may have had something to do with it. Detective Logan Grey is almost as interesting as Jesse, though he’s slightly older, and would require a slightly more sophisticated actor. I’d imagined the guy from Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Christopher Meloni, when I’d written him, so that would have to be the type of actor they’d cast before I’d sign off on anything.

I could easily think of big names who could handle Logan and Cameron, but imagining Jesse was a lot harder. Rather than writing my new novel, like I knew I should be, I found myself thinking back over my most recent People Magazine, picturing some of the faces I’d seen.

Of course there was the obvious ones, like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, but they just weren’t right for Jesse. I could see Cruise as Logan, though, as much of a weirdo as I thought he was. William H. Macy or Willem Defoe came to mind for Cameron, or maybe even William Devane or John Travolta. All of these men could pull off the part quite beautifully, at least, in my humble opinion.

But what about Jesse? Ben Affleck was too old, Matt Damon was too blonde, Zac Efron was too young. There was something wrong with every actor I thought of. Tobey Maguire was too innocent-looking, not handsome enough, James Franco might be too brooding for the part, though he was the best choice by far. The more I thought about it, the more he seemed to fit Jesse, and I found myself hoping it’d be him I was going to speak to.

By the time three o’clock rolled around, I’d even read through some of After Midnight, imagining Franco as Jesse. There was still something not quite right about him, but I figured if I was going to talk to the actor about the character, I could fix that.