Ray B: Yep, it was intentional, but it was also to show how different and fun a golf range can be from the staid and "old money" country clubs. I mean, when dealing with the public, an entrepreneur has to be ready for anything. And Cack, well, he and his bullhorn can handle most anyone... especially the politicians!

CeeCee: I laughed out loud while reading Par for the Course. How important is having a sense of humor? What makes you laugh?

Ray B: Forrest Gump makes me laugh, as do most movies with Owen Wilson. I find the travel writer Bill Bryson keeps me in stitches. Sometimes Dave Barry makes me laugh, and of course the sports writer Rick Reilly is quite good with the similes and metaphors. For me, having a sense of humor keeps me sane when things aren't going well. Humor is often the "lens" through which I view our topsy-turvy world. But not always...

CeeCee: Unpublished authors want to know: what was it like to get the call?

Ray B: Well, when I got "the call" I was in the middle of a summer nap. So I was awakened from slumber in more ways than one! To get that call is both a thrill and a realization that you had better polish your work to the nth degree, because soon it will be a real book and you'll be receiving real, professional critiques! Was it a long, hard road to publication? I can honestly say it was not. In early 2000 I took the only thirty pages I'd ever written to the Blue Ridge Christian Writers Conference. I called the story "Flabbergasted," and it got first place in the fiction contest. The judges encouraged me to keep going with the story and turn it into a full-length novel. So I did. Two years later, after four or five rejections, Baker Book House called, said the first half of the novel made them laugh and would I please send the second half. I told them I was in the process of changing the second half from present tense to past tense, but they said "send it on and we can fix that later." Total time from when I began writing that book and when I received a contract was two years and eight months. But understand that I was a maniac during that time, spending hours on just one paragraph if I felt I needed to. I would even rank every chapter on a scale of 1 to 10, then I'd identify the weakest chapter, fix that one, then identify the next weakest, fix that one, and so forth. I did this over and over, back to front, front to back, and sideways. I was very motivated to try and see if I could write something publishable, and do it with the most vivid story idea that's ever orbited inside my head. I give God all the credit for opening doors and pairing me with the perfect editor, Jeanette Thomason, to make that book the best it could be.