Naked On The Road

from Jacqueline

I’m limping onto the home stretch now – almost four weeks on the road, a 'plane and new hotel just about every day, and I know this is not the fashionable thing for authors on book tours to say, but, I’m knackered. Or, in cockney rhyming slang: cream-crackered. That means just so tired I could drop. But somewhere at the end of every security line, every take off and landing, there’s a great bookseller in an independent bookstore who is performing a local civic miracle in not only keeping its doors open amid a good deal of competition, but keeping free speech alive by stocking more than just the bestsellers. That’s what makes it all worth while, bags under the eyes and all.

However, dear readers, I thought I would kick off what I think might be my next literary adventure. It occurred to me that my flight schedule over the past four weeks has been even more intense than it was thirty-odd years ago when I was flying the skies for Britain’s Laker Airways, and seeing as how-to guides to travel by the travel professionals have been so popular, I think it’s time we authors had our own guide out there. Working Title - Naked on The Road: The Naked Authors Guide to Just Getting There. So, I’m collecting pearls of traveler wisdom from writers and readers, starting today. I’ll just kick off with a few of my own here, in no particular order:

• When you check into the hotel, make sure you make your room preferences known. Helps to give an example. I prefer a room somewhere quiet, so I always add, “And well away from elevators, ice machines, air-conditioning units, any sales team also staying at the hotel ....” One guest’s “quiet” is another guest’s sleepless night. On this note, beware any hotel that has "and conference center" added to the end of the name. Conference center means big groups of people away from home with expense accounts, which to me means noise and tipsy people in the hallways late at night when I am trying to get to sleep because I have to be at the airport by 6am. If you like a party, this might just be a good place for you.

• Before you even open your suitcase in the room, check to ensure that the room has everything you might need, such as a properly working shower, a toilet that flushes, a bathtub plug that actually stops water going down the hole, curtains that close, a heating/cooling unit that heats and cools ... you get it. It is such a bloody nuisance to get your suitcase open, get your computer out and generally settle in, only to find that you are sweating like a pig and can’t turn off the heating. In Coral Gables, in one of a chain known as “The Leading Hotels of the World,” my first room had the overpowering aroma of mold, in the second room I encountered two staff trying to rid the room of smoke, and finally had a good room by my third try. Call this the Goldilocks rule – don’t settle until you get one that’s just right.

• Planning the tour. If you are planning your own tour, make a list of the things you need/want and your preferences before you even start. And even though Southwest offer good flight prices, that business of not having a seat assignment gets really old really fast. Remember you will not be gaining energy as the tour progresses. (There’s also the issue of regular aircraft servicing).

• If your publisher is planning the tour, they tend to confirm the events, then have the travel agent book the flights/trains/cars, then they assign media escorts where appropriate. Here’s how it should be done: Plan the events, talk to the media escorts, confirm the events, book the travel. It’s amazing how many publishers do not take advantage of the wealth of knowledge available via a media escort, who can say things like, “Half an hour in the car from X to Y? You must be joking!” Or, “Why would you put an author in a hotel that’s two hours from the airport in the wrong direction, when I can just take her to the hotel up the road and they have a fifteen-minute shuttle from there?” They can also advise on such things as, “Those two bookstores don’t like to compete with each other, so you send her to either one or the other, not both.” This one saves you apologizing to bookstore owners. Media escorts are a mine of information. Mind you, the ones who can’t drive are as scary as all get-out. If you have media escorts on your tour, make a note of the good ones and make sure you get them in the future. And on the QT, do let us know the ones who run stoplights and can’t keep a car on the road.

• Food & Sustenance: This is really, really important. I think a book tour is the perfect time to live by my father’s maxim: Breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord and dinner like a pauper. You won’t have time for dinner anyway, so you had better make the other two worth it. Have protein at every meal and don’t overdo the carbs, otherwise you’ll feel like s**t. And because you haven’t had dinner, do try to avoid gobbling up the two chocolates left on your pillow by the hotel turn-down service (if you’re in that kind of hotel). That chocolate will sit in your esophagus and you’ll wake up with indigestion half way through the night. Not recommended. Also on the subject of food, whenever you can, stock up with energy bars – they come in so useful when you have to miss a meal and they prevent you eating really, really bad airport food or having a blood sugar crash and wanting to kill someone. I won’t comment on alcohol – we’re all grownups. I wouldn’t overdo it if I were you though – book tours are hard enough, so save the imbibing until the end, then get schnockered when you fall through the door of your own home.

• In-room laundry: OK, if you are on the one city, one gig a day kind of tour, at some point you are going to have to catch up with your laundry, and you don’t want to pack damp laundry in your case the next morning. Here’s the best way to get it done, but do not do this with your best cashmere sweater. This is for what my Aunt Rene always called your “smalls” and for t-shirts, cotton blouses and shirts, you know, those simple things. The shower gel makes a better laundry detergent than shampoo, but both work nicely. Use the hand-soap for those hard to remove stains. Wash your bits and pieces in cold water, rinse properly and then lay out a bath towel lengthwise on the floor. Squeeze excess water from your clothing and lay each piece in a line down the center of the towel, as if you were making a submarine sandwich. Flap the sides of the towel into the middle, so you have a sort of laundry roly-poly, then taking one end in each hand, begin to wring out more moisture as you twist the roll. Unwrap your laundry then hang over the shower rail – oh, and not one on top of the other, please. Give each item a bit of room to dry. Put shirts on hangers. This method works almost as well as a spin cycle on your washing machine. If there’s still a bit of damp the next morning, a quick once-over with the hair-dryer should take care of it.

• Airplane seating. At some point you will want to do damage at an airport. This is you hitting the wall on your tour. It should pass. If it doesn’t, talk to someone before it ends in tears. However, airplane seating is an important part of the mix. Make sure your preferences are known before you travel, do not leave this to chance. I would recommend sitting as close as you can to the front of the aircraft, so when that thing stops you are not stuck at the back with your inner scream because it’s the tenth flight this week and you just have to get off. Chances are you might actually get grumpy, and you don’t want to be hauled off and into security.

• Wheels. I know this is old hat, but do make sure anything you carry has wheels on it and is working properly, or can be put in the bag with wheels. Lugging your stuff around is hard enough. And make sure you have good luggage – and by that, I do not mean expensive. I was always a fan of the Ross-Dress-For-Less luggage collection, or the Marshalls or Costco suite of cases (I had a great suitcase from Costco that lasted years – thirty bucks), however for this tour I thought I should invest in an ultra-light case. Oh, my, never again! A couple of hundred bucks later and I have a case with a twisted up-and-down handle that won’t go up and down, and just as I was closing the thing this morning I noticed two thick wires bursting through the shell of the case – it looks like I’ve got a bomb in there, no kidding! So, it’s back to Ross or Marshall’s for me. I just hope this suitcase can make it through a few more flights. So, let’s share advice on luggage. I should add that I am not in the league for Louis Vuitton, clearly.

OK, I think that’s enough from me for one week, though I have even more gems up my sleeve, believe it or not. What on-tour travel tips do you have?