So Many Cities, So Little Time and Space

Busy, busy, busy as I'm simultaneously working on rolling out two huge, amazing upgrades to our site on Planet Purl, writing content for the site and the newsletter, and researching self-publishing, publishing on demand, figuring out which cities will be featured in the book, designing some PurlQueen patterns inspired by our featured cities, rifling through my favorite southern food creations to include in the book, getting my taxes ready, working on an appeal brief on the very last case of my legal career.... if it weren't before 8 a.m. here, just looking at this list would make me want to take a cocktail break. Alas, it will just have to be coffee.

The states to be included in the Deep South Knitting will be Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, both Carolinas, Mississippi, Virginia, Louisiana & Tennessee. After doing lots of research, I've picked the cities that will get full travelogues -- Savannah, Mobile, Charleston, Asheville, Natchez, Williamsburg, New Orleans & Lexington & Gatlinburg. Our first chapter where we hope to work out the kinks, layout, space, photo, etc., will be Savannah. Depending on the the construction timetable for my new laundry room, I'm hoping to make it to Savannah in April.

The research on self-publishing has been tedious, to put it mildly. Almost as bad as practicing law, but then very few things in life are that bad. Went to the dentist 2 days ago after I chipped a tooth, and neither chipping the tooth nor going to the dentist were as bad as practicing law. There must be a hundred companies out there to help authors publish or author/publishers print and market. All of course claiming to be the best on the planet. There are also hundreds of bulletin boards out there were people who've been through this themselves post about their experiences, good and bad. Lots of bad. And now it seems Amazon will only list your book if you use their publishing on demand company, and that one has a ton of complaints posted on these bulletin boards. So that research continues. Unhappily. Ick.

Planning the travel, knitting, cooking part has been way more fun. I'll be contributing my recipes for Sweet Tea, Mint Juleps, Red Velvet Cake, Bourbon Pralines, Beignets, Peach Cobbler, and what I believe is the best Sweet Cornbread on the planet. We'll also be soliciting restaurants in our featured cities to contribute signature recipes. I'll get to test them all for the book, too! Yummmmmmmy. A moment of silence in sympathy for my poor friends and members of my knitting group who will have to eat all this stuff after I bake it to photo it for the book?....

The visitor's bureaus of the featured cities have been very helpful in sending buckets of info to help me plan my trip. That part has me excited to get on the road, but we want to make sure we've mapped out exactly what I need to get in terms of photos, etc. before I go. And I'm using my burning desire to hit the road as an incentive to finish all the icky stuff, like getting my tax stuff finished and my appeal brief written before my road trip, as the trip to Savannah will be my reward for slogging through stuff I hate.

If anyone has a favorite place to eat or stay in any of the featured cities, I'd love to hear about it. Please post here or email me at deepsouthknitting@planetpurl.com.

And the adventure continues......