Saturday in Savannah With Zona Rosa

It takes me two and a half hours to get to "The Pink Zone."

The sign outside Rosemary Daniell's
house welcomes writers to the monthly workshop....

Inside Rosemary mediates lively discussions on everything from "The Thirteen

Boo Boos" to avoid in writing to composing 'killer' query letters.

A few "Rosemaryisms" I love: Say yes to stress...Sentimentality is the death of art...Don't apologise for a fucking thing...No guts, no story...

Commit yourself to the project and write the hell out of it...We can be living our lives creatively all the time...Art can make beautiful what might be painful to look at...

And so it goes every month....Zona Rosa is the greatest therapy and in the meantime, I get to hear words from some of the most talented women I've ever met. Lately they've been after me to get off my lazy arse and publish. RD says I have several great book ideas...Oh the angst of it all!!!!

....a galley copy of RD's new book...quirky, different....It was passed
around and nobody wanted to put it down. RD is the Grand Dame of
'Chic Lit' but her work is so much more than what we have come to associate with the term. I hope this book establishes her contribution
to to the genre once and for all.

More pics....

Weepy Weepy Weepy

Million Dollar Baby







Last night I watched Million Dollar Baby on HBO. I never saw it on the big screen. All I knew about this movie was that Hillary Swank who stars along with Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman, ate burgers in her designer gown at a hamburger joint after she won the Oscar for her performance. I wish I'd known what I was in for when I sat down to watch. This is a fantastic but NOT a feel good movie. No happy endings folks. We get Clint Eastwood's reluctant hero (nobody does it better) and Morgan Freeman, his trusty sidekick, who narrates throughout the flick. Clint directed, produced and stars. How's that for an over the hill cowboy! He also wrote the soundtrack.

Here's the short version: Clint takes on the 31 year old Swank as a fighter, trains her to perfection and they go after a million dollar payday. She is creamed by a mulatto skank from Germany. Lies paralyzed in a bed, loses a leg to bed sores, is victimized by her lazy, welfare cheatin' family who come after her money, begs Clint to end it all. He refuses and she tries to bite off her tongue. Clint gives in, unplugs the breathing machine and gives her a shot of adrenaline to put her mercifully to sleep. I won't even go into all of the psycho, social ramifications and life metaphors in this film. Suffice to say Clint's view of life has not mellowed with age....It is dark, dark, dark. I'm still cryin.'