2007 reflections

What a year it’s been! I was thinking about highlights and lowlights, and thought I better find some wood to knock on – fast – because there’ve hardly been any dark spots. In fact, apart from the year I met, fell in love with and married Tom, and the years when James and Susan were born, it’s been one of the happiest years of my life.

So, some of the highs?

January was visiting my family and friends in Canada; having some quiet time with my parents, seeing Susan in her new life in Vancouver (and listening to my sister’s crazy parrot)

- Santa Monica: spending time with Nim’s Island’s producer Paula Mazur and her family again, meeting Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett, Nim’s directors/screenwriters, for the first time and sitting in a café being shown scene dioramas and storyboards, being taken for lunch by the Walden executives and discussing dreams (I said mine was that Nim would be greenlit while I was in town)… and a fabulous last day, starting with a walk on Santa Monica Beach, on to a meeting at Fox, back to meet Paula, discuss the film’s progress, and then be whisked out to the wonderful Getty Museum , and finally, pick up soy chai lattes for a final walk on the beach at sunset.

March was Paula’s phone call to say Nim’s Island had the green light, with Jodie Foster and Abigail Brslin. Gerard Butler’s name was confirmed some time later – each one of those announcements was a celebration in its own right.

- my parents arriving for Dad to help James renovate his apartment ; the three generations of men working together, and finally James moving into his own first home.

- the shortlisting of Across the Dark Sea for the NSW Premier's Community Relations Award.


May was a day in Sydney with Paula , realising that we’d finally met in Australia and that the film was truly going to happen.– and looking at a map at the end of the day and realising we’d walked about 20 km as we’d chatted.

June was the publication of the American Mokie and Bik, a book that is truly close to my heart, not just because of the family stories it incorporates, but the risk of playing with language as I did (or maybe just because it took so many years to work out)

July was Susan coming over for a couple of weeks - some special times with her, including a trip to Brisbane for the launch of the Australian Nim at Sea, also dear simply because I love these characters so much, and had been so caught up in the writing of this next stage of their adventure. And then that funny evening at Riverbend Books, with Paula, Mark & Jen all stuck on the boat .

August was our visit to the set, and that could be a whole list of highlights in itself: seeing the reality of it all, feeling the buzz of the atmosphere and the warmth of the crew, watching Paula, Mark and Jen in action, having Jodie Foster tell me that Nim’s Island was the book that got her son into reading, going to the beach with Abigail and her family, going out for dinner with Gerry and a bunch of his friends after seeing 300 and being serenaded by Rocco, a young opera singer from Naples…

September was my second visit to the set: arriving to a “Welcome Home,” from one of the assistant directors and feeling that I was back friends , being made up and doing my EPK interview, understanding a little more of the process as I watched, and opening my wonderful gifts at the airport on the way home

October was starting to work on my new website with Linda Judd, and getting to know and admire her.

November is birthday month for both Tom and me, a lovely dinner at la Petanque with James and my agents Debbie and Colin Golvan.

December was the thrill of seeing the trailer, and a wonderful Christmas with James, Tom and I going up to Tom’s sister and her family in northern Queensland; phone calls with Susan, my parents, and sister Kathy. My most unexpected gift? A Mokie and Bik mouse pad from my lovely editor at Henry Holt. Very special!

And through out the year, there’ve been the special contacts with friends and readers; friends we’d lost contact with who got in touch when they heard the Nim’s Island news; kids who write to tell me of the events in their lives, whether happy or sad, teenagers who first wrote when they read Nim’s Island as children, the fans who throw unbelievable energy into supporting the movie, all the family and friends who share who our lives.

My list could go on, so I’ll simply conclude again with , What a year it’s been.

May 2008 be filled with joy, happiness and health for everyone.

’Nim’s Island’ Trailer Hits the Net - Nim MySpace Blog

Myspace.com Blogs - ’Nim’s Island’ Trailer Hits the Net - Nim MySpace Blog

Nim's Island trailer!

Nim's Island trailers and video clips on Yahoo! Movies


Can you imagine my frustration yesterday when I got the link .... and my computer stubbornly refused to play it! Whatever I did, the video box stayed black and empty - I was just about ready to burst into tears.

Finally I tried on my laptop - and then the tears were happy ones.

Then I saw it on Entertainment Tonight and it was even better on the bigger screen (maybe my husband was right about finally updating our teeny little TV!)

So now it's out there, this bit of it at least, like a book in the review copy, so it's not quite part of you anymore, but the umbilical cord is still attached. I think I need a little longer to absorb it all... but for now, all I know is that I'm thrilled. It even made me laugh out loud a couple of times - and I'd seen one of those filmed!

We were SO lucky to get those actors.

Small world

Friday was the wind up for the Victorian Premier's Reading Challenge, so about 200 kids and 15 author Reading Ambassadors met the premier and other dignitaries at the National Gallery. The Great Hall has the most incredible stained glass ceiling - it's worth a visit just to see that, let alone the rest of the gallery.

Boori Pryor's cousin Vicki Saylor was there too - and despite having just been at the Australian Film Awards, and winning one, which I would have thought was pretty amazing, what she was really excited about was that she'd been on the Nim's Island set with her Uncle Russel.

Small world...

Serendipidity and Writing

I'm in the middle of reading the page proofs for the UK Puffin edition of Nim's Island. When I came to the description of Nim lighting a fire:

"She unscrewed the lens from her spyglass. She pointed it so that the sun shone a bright beam on her kindling. A brown patch grew and glowed - and a small flame sparkled on the dry palm fronds..."

I suddenly remembered that I'd written that after visiting a friend who'd just had a fire in her living room. Her reading glasses had been lying on the newspaper on the coffee table - in just the right way that the sun hit them and heated up the newspaper till it burst into flames.

Would I have thought of Nim making fire this way if my friend hadn't told me of her scare? Maybe; maybe not. That's why I love writing - because I never know what I'm going to discover till it happens.

Right now (at least once I've finished reading these proofs) I need to discover whether the pony tail I saw the other day will find a place in the current work in progress. I think it belongs there - but I won't know for sure till I write it.