Over Their Dead Bodies

From an old, favorite book, Over Their Dead Bodies, an epitaph erected many decades after the fact in Danvers, Mass.:

Accused of Witchcraft
She declared
‘I am innocent and God will
Clear my innocency.’
Once acquitted yet falsely
Condemned she suffered
Death July 19, 1692,
Her Christian character even
Then fully attested by forty
Of her neighbors.

We have been building a team that will write and produce the DVD-movie of my first published novel, Murder At the War – which I think will be called by the title it was given in paperback: Knight Fall.  (Which I actually think is a better title.)  There is a man, a member of my church, whom I know as a writer of both books and screenplays and musician, who has helped me format the plots of my Betsy Devonshire books as proposals for made-for-TV films, or as a series, a la “Murder She Wrote.”  Though the proposals fell through, this man remains a source of advice and encouragement.  So when a search began for someone who could turn my “treatment” into an actual movie script, I put this man’s name forward.  And it looks as if he may join the crew.  We’ll see.  Meanwhile, I’ve been tasked with contacting various officers in the Society for Creative Anachronism for permission and guidance in filming the story on location.

And actually, I know how to write a script, too.  I wrote a radio play, “The Corpse in Fibber McGee’s Closet,” which was performed at a Magna cum Murder mystery convention – and simultaneously broadcast on a local radio station.  I have a recording of it somewhere, and the script resides in a filing cabinet not two yards from the desk at which I am writing this blog entry.  It was a pretty good story.

We’re getting into September, and the weather is already cooling toward autumn here in Minnesota.  Nighttime temps fall into the fifties and daytime temps rise into the upper seventies.  Delicious!  There’s even been snow in Canada.  I ordered my Michaelmas goose this past Sunday – Michaelmas is September 29, and who eats goose at Michaelmas won’t want for money for a year.  The problem is, geese are expensive, so if your problem is want of money, I can't recommend this remedy.  Maybe if you get together with some friends, you could come up with the price.  Make it a pot luck, that’s what we do.  And, I have a really great recipe for roast goose.  Plus a terrific theme song for the event.