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Tuesday, January 01, 2019

Literary kickoff to 2019--

Christmas Eve tree with a weird blue haze--why?
Michael's camera mysteries....
On the very first day of the year,
on the eighth day of Christmas,
on the Feast of the Holy Name...

I am signing away a two-year option on my novel Catherwood to Toronto director Bill G. Taylor and producer Coral Aiken. As one does at the start of a new year...

Good luck to them. And now they have through the last day of 2020 to do what they must do.

Happy New Year to all! And a merry and mad medieval Feast of Fools to you.

As on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we will have all five of us (plus the inimitable Campbell Higle, childhood camp friend of Rebecca) at home for a feast. Husband, sons, daughter, and friend. And that, my friends, is entirely sweet and meet and jolly.

Michael is hard at work on pies and ducks and many surprises. And I am doing a final read of a forthcoming novel while he labors with chef-genius in the kitchen.

18 comments:

  1. Congratulations on the movie option, Marly -- I hope it comes to something tangible and rewarding for you! Happy New Year.

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  2. Thanks, Beth--glad you could comment, as I just had another person on facebook tell me it is too hard. Don't know why they add hoops to jump through--I do not want any!

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  3. That's wonderful, I loved that book, it would be a powerful film!

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    1. Well, I'm glad you managed to post. I've had other people say (via facebook) that they couldn't get past the image test...

      And thank you! It's the second option for Catherwood, so these things often don't pan out--panning for film gold is a precarious business, it seems!

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  4. Happy New Year! I hope they do something fabulous with Catherwood.

    Your Christmas plasma is impressive!

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    1. Ah, spectral plasma! That explains it... XD

      Yes, I hope so. Bill wrote me the most beautiful letters about the book. And there have been some interesting Canadian movies of late.

      Happy New Year.

      Cheers,
      Marly

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    1. Hi, Tim-- I am behind in everything but hoping to catch up early in the year. Happy New Year!

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  6. Signing an option. Aha. A form of blessing. Perhaps I should re-kick-start Rictangular Lenses by imagining it as a movie. With Emma Thompson as Lindsay. But then Emma writes her own scripts- did a smashing Persuasion. Wonderful in the last thing I saw of hers: Alone in Berlin, all that inner glow turned into sorrow and drabness. True courage, trying to keep screaming fear under control.

    It might work.

    Sixty-five is no age at all. Adolescence finally subdued. Not only was I still ski-ing I was improving. The world was my oyster and the flow of chablis unrestrained. Age arrives like the blade of a guillotine, gradually gathering speed, ultimately fatal. Death is another way of saying worn out, beyond useful application. At the end perhaps we recognise we deserve what's to come, there is nothing else left.

    If I am any guide you've got at least another eighteen years. But this I think is pessimistic. There's a resilience, a cheerfulness that will transport you into mischievous old age. Another hundred odes. Four or five perfected novels. Coast to coast appearances reading aloud your own stuff to attentive audiences. Polite questions from people who genuinely want to know.

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    1. Hah, that is an optimistic view! It's strange, but I no longer have the least concern for being popular, and am not bothered by being obscure. Still, I hope for the sake of my books that you are a prophet. And you seem to me to be a person who is keeping on and trying new things--surely that is a great thing in older age.

      This is a modest venture in the realm of Canadian film. I neither expect nor not-expect, I would say.

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  7. Great news on the literary front! And a wonderful scene on the home front. Happy New Year, Marly!

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    1. Dave, thank you! Happy New Year to you--hope all is well with you on all fronts!

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  8. Sorry about blogger commenting having more hoops--I don't want them. Thanks for all the comments on facebook and twitter!

    Sample from the flood... Thanks!

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  9. What lovely tidings. This is especially happy news, because it means a curious, creative person (or people) read your book, found it moving, and felt motivated to give shape to their own reactions and interpretations. That is just very cool.

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    1. Yes, I loved the letters he wrote about it... Very sweet and inspiring. Thanks, Jeff.

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  10. "Signing away" sounds dire. I hope it will not be dire, will be far better than neutral.

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    1. Hah, yes, maybe that was too dithery of me... Thank you, George.

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  11. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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Alas, I must once again remind large numbers of Chinese salesmen and other worldwide peddlers that if they fall into the Gulf of Spam, they will be eaten by roaming Balrogs. The rest of you, lovers of grace, poetry, and horses (nod to Yeats--you do not have to be fond of horses), feel free to leave fascinating missives and curious arguments.