GENREALITY

I got home from my book tour Friday and have spent the last couple of days doing laundry and trying to recharge.  I thought I had dodged a bullet and avoided the traditional getting sick after a trip — not so much, it turns out.  I woke up with a sore throat yesterday and today I’m rocking a full-on cold.  I’ve been running hard for three solid weeks, and it’s like my body went, “woohoo, a break!” and my immune system promptly shut down.  Sigh. . .

A recap:  the tour was eleven days, eight flights, seven hotels in seven cities, eight signings, and two stock signings at additional stores.  Best of all, people showed up for every single event.  Yay!  Met with friends for meals four times (including breakfast with our very own Ken Scholes and his family, when I got to meet the babies!), saw a movie with my brother in Portland, and caught my first episode of True Blood on the hotel’s HBO.  (Reaction — whoa, I shouldn’t have jumped in on the middle of this one. . .)  It was too cool for swimming in California (overcast and windy.  In July, in California!) and in Phoenix, when I thought I was going to get to hop in the pool, there was a thunderstorm.  Ah well. . .

Things learned:  Grabbing a Danish or muffin right before an early flight and calling it breakfast might work at the beginning and end of a long trip, but doing that five days in a row doesn’t work so well.  The iPod Touch I got to check e-mail and stuff in lieu of carrying around my laptop worked just dandy, and I even read a couple of books on it.  All the cities kind of blurred together — I remember meeting lots of people, but I’m not quite sure where I met whom.  Next time, consider taking pictures.  Also, keep a better record of my contacts (book stores, etc.) in each city so I can arrange meetings and stock signings and things before the trip instead of trying to plan them during.  Also, never hesitate to contact the publicist who arranged the tour for help in making adjustments.  Take notes.

This was a pretty short tour all in all, and it wasn’t too strenuous — a few hours of being “on,” and a lot of waiting at airports for the next flight.  I even got a couple of books read and marked up most of the manuscript I’m working on.  But what I’m wondering is how the big guns who do six-week-plus tours all over the country manage it.  You’d pretty much have to do laundry a couple of times, and I don’t think you could fit everything in a duffle bag like I did, and how do you get any work done?  How do you put your life on hold for six weeks?

Maybe I’ll find out someday.  But if I do end up on a long tour like that, I think I’ll see if I can corner someone who’s done it and get some advice.

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