In case you were feeling productive or successful today, here's some news about a 24-year-old author who has written a trilogy of books and will now see a movie made from them. Sorry, but this news has to be shared. According to Variety Twentieth Century Fox has optioned the rights to Alexandra Bracken's trilogy of books Black is the Color, with Night at the Museum and Real Steel director Shawn Levy planning to produce through his 21 Laps production company.

The story seems to fall into the I Am Number Four wheelhouse, focusing on a telekinetic 16-year-old who's part of a group of teenagers on the run from the government. Though the book won't be out until 2012 it has collected a slew of enthusiastic reviews at GoodReads, which is confusing but which I am assume has some kind of logical explanation. At Bracken's personal website there's a detailed explanation of the book's plot, which I'll leave you with for lack of any more solid information about the book or the movie that will be based on it.

In the six years since being plucked from her old life and placed in a government-run “rehabilitation camp,” the only color that has entered sixteen-year-old Ruby’s world is gray of the electric fence surrounding it. The mysterious “Kid-Killer” virus has left most American children dead, but Ruby is not one of them—she’s one of the dangerous ones, the ones who lived.

The ones who developed frightening powers of the mind.

When the opportunity to escape her camp comes, Ruby soon finds herself on the run and joining forces with a small band of other escapees: Zu, a mute girl who can telekinetically control electronics, Chubs, a skinny genius who doesn’t want another kid along to deplete their meager supplies, and Liam, the kind and good-hearted leader of their ragtag group who can move objects twice his size with the wave of a hand. They seem to be on a mission but won’t confide in Ruby, who only wants to learn to control her extraordinary ability which makes her a danger to anyone she gets close to.

The gang soon learns that there are other forces at work, organizations that want to use Ruby in their fight against the tyranny of the political regime. But they also learn there may be someone who can help them all reunite with their families after all: The Slip Kid, a leader who offers shelter to young people in danger and who possesses the secret to controlling one’s powers. As she finds herself drawn to Liam, Ruby becomes more and more desperate for the knowledge she has always craved. But the Slip Kid is not all that he seems, and Ruby soon finds herself unsure of who to trust…and who to love.