Is that a gravy bowl full of Imodium?

Hello, again. I hope Thanksgiving found all of you well! For me and five of my unluckiest of family members, the holiday weekend was spent mostly rehydrating ourselves. Over the extra long weekend, it seems we all got bored with countless good times with family, watching television, eating, and not being at school or work or infant daycare, so we did what came natural - we contracted a most rapacious of intestinal contagion. Or, we had the stomach flu.
So, for all the turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes and cheesy macaroni and cornbread I divulged in, I felt as though I expelled equal parts. Cranberry sauce and the Dallas Cowboys one day; sharing a bottle of Fifi's (my infant niece) Pedialyte the next - isn't this a crazy world?
Anyway, back to my book, Queens And Crescents. When last we read, my book was nothing more than a wishful dream. Since I was quite young I have seemed to have quite the imagination. As youngsters, my twin brother, Bruce, and I, were continually writing short stories, songs - you name it. Most of them didn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense, but, on that rare occasion - perhaps when Venus and Mars were aligned - we jotted down some good ones. Once, when I was twelve or so, I created a band called Exeter (imaginatively speaking, of course), named after the city in Great Britain. I created an album cover as well as nine songs; most of them littered with vague WWII references - or as good as a twelve year old could manage. Tonight’s ramblings are not at all related to my book, but an interesting story nonetheless. If anything, it gives you all a tiny glimmer into how long I have been writing, attempting to write, or, at the very least, making goofy-looking album covers out of notebook paper and magic markers.
Now, all I do is annoy Jenny - my always beautiful and mostly patient wife with all my squirrelly albeit creative ideas. Let's see, in the past I have successfully and tenaciously, if not briefly, made all of the following:

cologne
soap
soy candles
liquor/beer
wood signs/mailboxes
work of fiction

The last one is my favorite (although the homemade "Kahlua" rates a close second).
Well, I am sorry for not writing any more details on how the book came to fruition, but hopefully gave you an entertaining story nonetheless.
Man, I wish to God I still had a copy of that Exeter album cover; I would scan that damn thing and upload it.
"Say, Honey, next time you're up, would get me the kids' Crayola markers? Er, ahem, and the Pepto as well...."
See you next week. Stay tuned Sunday for more photographs.

Beautiful landscape near Burgin, KY, located in the Bluegrass region.

Autumn scenery near Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill, KY. 

Panoramic view of Herrington Lake area in the beautiful Bluegrass region of Kentucky.

Welcome

Hello, and welcome to the initial installment of The Fiction Scribe. My name is Barry Southers. Currently, my first book, titled, Queens and Crescents, is to be published in early 2006. It is a story about a man names Sean who takes a chance in life and follows his heart to New Orleans, where, through unforeseen turns of events, is catapulted into the life of a beautiful, yet very troubled woman named Daniella - a woman, who, unbeknownst to Sean, is engaged to a man of power and wealth, a man who is abusive, hot-tempered, and dangerous - and also the leader of an underground crime family in Cincinnati.
She is all he has ever wanted in a woman, and, unfortunately, all he would have hoped to avoid.
Through it all, through exhilarating highs and heartbreaking lows, Sean learns that some things in this world are worth fighting for, and quite possible dying for.
Follow along with me as I go from aspiring writer to published author and see what the experience is like firsthand. Currently, Queens and Crescents has been assigned to an editor assigned at the publishers. This process is usually several months, depending on what the editor requests to be changed. I am hoping that me having the book edited numerous times will aid in the expediency of this process, but I not holding my breath. Be it as it may, I received numerous emails from the publishers recently notifying me of this aforementioned editorial process, which after the initial revisions are requested and then made, I will return the proofs back to the editor in order to allow them to begin the review and critique process all over again. I do not mind, of course, for their trained eyes will discover any miscues I may have banged out along the way.
This is all preemptive of me, though. Since the creation of Queens and Crescents began over 3, 500 moons ago, and I have a few months to kill prior to my book hitting the brick-and-mortar shelves (as well as a multitude of online booksellers) I should convey this story you all of you from its commencement.
It all started in 1996, in a smoky bar in the Vieux Carré, or French Quarter, in New Orleans. The name of said bar is irrelevant, particularly considering the fact that I am now unable to summon it up from the bowels of my cerebral cortex. Anyway, this seedy, den of iniquity is where I met Susan, a friend I had from that point on until about 2000. In a drunken stupor, we both miraculously exchanged and managed to hold onto each other’s contact information. Throughout the next year or so, we corresponded via telephone and letters, both shocked, excited, and confused about the fact that we were corresponding at all. Since we were drunk and New Orleans was the place where chance let us to meet, we thought our stars crossed in the night sky for an instant only to flicker and fade. This is simply not true, even though that March night in the Big Easy was our once and only encounter in person. Odd? Perhaps, but that is how stories are developed; how reality and fantasy are formed into a vague amalgam, both entities indistinguishable from one another. Once, shortly after our Crescent City encounter, I received a letter from my new friend, yet this time there was something with it – a photograph, of her, presumably taken by Glamour Shots. On the back she had scribbled a one-line note to me, a note that would someday, several years later, be the starting point to me writing to completion my first book - the one you are sitting here reading about at this very instant:

“We’ll always have New Orleans.”

And we’ll leave it at that…Happy Thanksgiving.
See you next week.