You might think the above title applies to people who come to book tour events, and that wouldn\u2019t be entirely wrong, because sometimes total nut cases do show up at signings.\u00a0 My most notable one of those was the guy who had just been acquitted of murdering seven people and did I want to write his book.\u00a0 Well \u2026 no \u2026 as a matter of fact I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
But today\u2019s topic is all about author mental health on book tours\u2014my mental health.<\/p>\n
I usually start out in a reasonably chipper mood and then, gradually, things go downhill.\u00a0 Sticking to a schedule and waging unaccustomed battles with rush hour traffic in one strange city after another is wearing.\u00a0 Even in name brand hotels, there are times when cleanliness is not next to godliness.\u00a0 And bouncing from one time zone to the next with wild abandon means your body arrives home on no known time zone.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve had a few notorious meltdowns on tour.\u00a0 One was early on in my book tour life when the strap on the three-week old purse I\u2019d bought from Nordstroms broke, scattering my carefully packed necessities up and down a hotel corridor in Omaha, Nebraska.\u00a0 That was a tour where the first stop was in Omaha, with the second in San Diego, before finally finishing up on the East Coast.\u00a0 I believe at the end of that tour I sent a note to my then publicist saying that \u201cjust because an airline schedule says you can make it doesn\u2019t mean you SHOULD!\u201d<\/p>\n
But back to the Omaha purse.\u00a0 I grabbed up my stuff and loaded it into my suitcase.\u00a0 This was long enough ago that there were still \u201cMedia Escorts\u201d who met up with authors at airports and then dragged them around to signings, events, and hotels.\u00a0 Upon my arrival in San Diego the next day, the Media Escort, whose name was Ken Something or Other, asked me if there was anything I needed.\u00a0 \u201cYes,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cTake me to Nordstroms.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 He dropped me off, and I marched into the purse section carrying the broken remains of my $40.00 purse.<\/p>\n
Me: I need to exchange this purse.<\/em><\/p>\n Clerk:\u00a0 Where did you buy it?<\/em><\/p>\n Me:\u00a0 Seattle, Washington.<\/em><\/p>\n Clerk: I don\u2019t think we can do that.<\/em><\/p>\n Me:\u00a0 Yes, you can.\u00a0 This is Nordies<\/em>.<\/p>\n Bill and I had been in Nordstroms in Vancouver, Washington the week before where I\u2019d seen a beautiful Brahman purse that I loved, but since I had just bought the other one, I couldn\u2019t justify buying the much more expensive one.\u00a0 But there in San Diego, I saw the very same purse.\u00a0 In the end, a store manager gave me a $40.00 credit toward the new purse which, from my point of view, was eye-poppingly expensive, but then I used that purse every day for the next ten years which meant that my purse budget of $40.00 per year wasn\u2019t all that far out of line.<\/p>\n But I digress.\u00a0 That was something that happened at the beginning of a tour, and I\u2019m supposed to be talking about my mental health at the end of tours which, generally speaking, isn\u2019t all that good.\u00a0 On one tour, my flight home meant catching a connecting flight in Phoenix.\u00a0 While our plane waited on the tarmac for a gate to open up, the Seattle-bound plane pushed back from the gate next door and took off without me.\u00a0 I called Bill in full crybaby mode. \u201cGo to Alaska Air, book an afternoon flight, and come home.\u201d\u00a0 I did.<\/p>\n So this week we\u2019ve been mostly home with the final tour event scheduled for Bay City Michigan on April 26.\u00a0 Since this event was arranged by a Speaker\u2019s Bureau rather than by my publisher, I set up the flights, hotel, and car reservations on my own.\u00a0 I did this a long time ago\u2014prior to the tour\u2014and because we were traveling so much between then and now, it seemed like a good idea to be gone only two days rather than three.<\/p>\n My daughter often says that I\u2019m calendar challenged, and this week it was true.\u00a0 For some strange reason, I decided we were departing on Wednesday rather than Thursday.\u00a0 Departing on Wednesday and coming home on Thursday.\u00a0 Finally, on Monday, the hotel in Bay City sent me my early check in notification, saying we were checking in on Thursday and out on Friday.\u00a0 \u201cWait a minute,\u201d I told myself.\u00a0 \u201cThat can\u2019t be.\u00a0 We\u2019re flying on Wednesday\u201d\u00a0 So I called the hotel to see if we could change the reservation to a Wednesday arrival.\u00a0 Nope, I was told.\u00a0 The hotel was completely booked for Wednesday night.\u00a0 So I canceled the hotel reservation.\u00a0 And then, hours later, when I finally got my head on straight and looked at the REAL calendar rather than the fictional one in my head, I discovered that we\u2019re flying on THURSDAY.\u00a0 At that point, I called the hotel back and uncancelled the cancelled hotel reservation.<\/p>\n So now we really are flying tomorrow\u2014on THURSDAY.\u00a0 We fly to Detroit on a flight that departs Seattle at 6 AM.\u00a0 Whoever thought THAT was a good idea?\u00a0 Guess who?\u00a0 And we\u2019re both dreading our 4:00 AM wakeup call, but we\u2019ll manage.<\/p>\n And when we finally get home on Friday evening (Friday really!) the Duel to the Death book tour will be over.<\/p>\n At last.\u00a0 It\u2019s been fun, but I\u2019m ready to be home!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You might think the above title applies to people who come to book tour events, and that wouldn\u2019t be entirely wrong, because sometimes total nut cases do show up at signings.\u00a0 My most notable one of those was the guy who had just been acquitted of murdering seven people and did I want to write 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