The Trouble With Spells Blog Tour Stop # 12

Matt the Magical Muse

I would be remiss if I didn’t take the time on this tour to give a shout out to a certain someone who was extremely influential in my creation of the character, Vance Mangum. For all of his wonderful alpha maleness, Vance has a counterpart, an alter ego if you will, who comes in the form of actor Matt Lanter.

I was driving down the road on a long trip one day when I came up with the character of Vance,

and while I was doing so I had the image of an actor leaning up against an orange muscle car pop

instantly in my head. For the life of me,I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before and I

spent the next couple of hours racking my brain trying to figure it out.

Finally, I remembered that I had been recording the newly remade version of 90210 on my DVR,but I hadn’t been watching it. I had walked through the room one day while it was recording and I’d seen Matt in what turned out to be one of his very first appearances on the show.

I went home and watched the entire second half of the season, becoming a fan of his work

instantly. After I was done catching up on the season, I looked up other things he had appeared

in. I ordered his movies from Amazon, and settled in for a little “Matt Fest” while I tried to

memorize all of his little actions and nuances, from the way he shrugged his shoulders to the sexy cocking of that eyebrow of his.

Matt became the mental picture of Vance Mangum in my head as I started writing the character.

This was really fun for me, because I could actually see the character doing things in my head and I could hear the inflections in his voice when he spoke.

After I had the first edition of the book published, someone asked me if I’d ever shared with

Matt that he’d been my muse for the story. I was mortified by the thought, thinking how truly

terrifying that would be to try to contact him. However, after that I began to ponder the idea in my head and one day I finally bit the bullet and contacted his publicist. I explained who I was and how Matt had influenced me and asked her if she would be willing to help me send him a

copy of my book. She replied in the affirmative, telling me that I had great taste because Matt

was terrific.

Right about the time I sent the book to Matt, he opened up a Twitter account. I sent him a tweet

one day asking him if he’d received the book yet and was thrilled to get a response from him that he had and he was looking forward to reading it. I was even more thrilled when several weeks later he retweeted the official release of the book, sending hundreds of followers to my page. I made some great connections with some influential people after that tweet. I kept tweeting Matt here and there, and I would occasionally get a reply from him as well which was always fun.

One day his publicist contacted me and said that Matt’s manager would like to have the book and

would I mind sending him a copy. I was over the moon about this and quickly sent off copies of

both book one and two to him. He sent me a very nice email thanking me and said he thought

it would be neat if they could work it into a project for Matt down the road. That comment, of

course, threw me into complete giddy mode, and while nothing may come of it…it was still

exciting to think about!

Sometime after this I had a minor heart attack when I got on Twitter one night and found out

that Matt was following me. I was so excited! It has been fun to be able to talk to him here and

there, and even have his participation in choosing winners for contests and such. He was eve

kind enough to autograph Star Wars DVDs for my son for Christmas, much to my son’s delight I

might add!

Yes, I can indeed echo the words of his publicist… “Matt is terrific!” I have enjoyed my

association with him and sending him silly “care” packages whenever a new book is released. I

now have a gorgeous picture of him gracing my office that he has signed for me, proclaiming me

as his number one fan. What fun! Go give this wonderful guy a look if you haven’t already and

see if you notice the “Vance” connection.

Matt’s most current roles are as Liam on 90210, Edward Sullen in the movie Vampires Suck, and

voice over for Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Matt is quickly rising to fame,

and getting lots of attention, recently being voted the number one Hottest Guy in Hollywood.

Keep an eye on him. He will be the “IT” guy before you know it!

Want to see Matt in action? Here’s a little video of him in the episode that started it all for me! Bad boy/hot kisses…the works! (The muscle car scene I mentioned is at 4 minutes in, but be sure to catch the kiss at the beginning.)

You can follow Matt on his verified Twitter account at http://twitter.com/MattLanter

Lacey Weatherford has always had a love of books. She wanted to become a writer after reading her first Nancy Drew novel at the age of eight. She resides in the White Mountains of Arizona , where she lives with her wonderful husband, six beautiful children, one son-in-law, and their energetic schnauzer, Sophie. When she's not out supporting one of her kids at their sporting/music events, she spends her time writing, reading, blogging, and reviewing books.

Win a Kindle Treasure Hunt!

We want to reward all the wonderful followers of this blog tour, so what better way to do that than to give away a free Kindle and Of Witches and Warlocks Swag! Being entered to win is easy! All you have to do is follow the tour each day and search for the highlighted words in the post. There may be only one word on some days or two or more on others, so be sure to read the whole post. They could be anywhere…even in this description! Keep collecting the words each day to build a certain phrase. At the end of the tour on April 22nd, bring your completed phrase to The Delusional Diaries and submit it into the form to be entered into the Kindle drawing! Did you miss a day? No worries! Just follow the linky list on The Delusional Diaries to the post for that day and search for it. After you have submitted the special phrase, add up all the times you commented on the different posts during the tour and add that number for extra entries! Lots of chances! So come join in the FUN!

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Tomorrow's Stop is Ramblings of A Random Girl

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