Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

Hi, y’all. I can say that because I’m in Dallas now. I know–doesn’t it seem like I was just in Ann Arbor six hours ago? ‘Cause I was?

First of all, let me publicly acknowledge that my husband is right about something. I’ve always hated that he plays the lottery. I just feel like there are poor people out there whose whole financial planning rests on winning the lottery, and so I don’t want to sweep in there and grab it for myself. Plus, I’m one of those weird people who much prefers earning my money to winning it. I know.

But he continues to play against my wishes for one reason: he wants to own a jet. Because if we were ever rich enough, he would never want to fly commercial again.

After a week of flying every single morning, which means getting to airports at sometimes 5:00 AM, I am so with him on that one. Wouldn’t it be the height of luxury to be able to roll out of bed when you feel like it, slap on a pair of sweats, get in the car, drive to the hangar, step right onto the plane, say, “Hello, Charles,” to the pilot (don’t you think that would be his name? Or maybe “Brick” or something manly leftover from his days in the Air Force. Or maybe “Charlie” if it’s a woman pilot who’s all sassy and Beryl Markham-ish and all. I digress).

Anyway, now I’m in Dallas, the last stop on my tour, and in a little while my escort will drive me to Fort Worth where I’ll be speaking at a high school. What a great way to end the week. Then tonight it’s dinner with a bunch of educators, and hurrah for that, too. I hope the place serves Tex Mex. Where I live in Arizona we’re totally snobby about our Mexican food, because it does happen to be the greatest in the nation, but I’m willing to give Texas a run at it, just so I can be morally superior next time I say we have the best Mexican food and someone says, “Yeah, but have you ever eaten in Dallas?” and I can shut them down.

On the way to the hotel the escort was kind enough to do what every escort on this tour has been kind enough to do, and that’s drop into the local Whole Foods or similar chain so that I can load up on greenery.

Because I had an interesting conversation back in San Francisco with a very successful author who went on a very insane tour last summer–something like 350 bookstores in two months. Yikes. Another author friend of his did something similar, but here’s the difference:

Author B (the friend) subsisted on Red Bull, Jolt, and McDonald’s. Author A (the one telling me this story) lived off of Whole Foods and herbal teas. And he brought his jump rope and some free weights in the his car and made sure he worked out a little every morning.

And now the difference is that Author A (Mr. Health) is perfectly happy to go out on the road again this summer and hit 200 stores in two weeks, whereas Author B (Mr. Jolt) would rather rip off his own toenails than ever do that again.

I would like to be an Author A.

So even though every night of this tour I’ve been having these unbelievably rich, decadent meals with booksellers and librarians, and every morning I do my best to find something semi-edible in the airport or on the plane, I make sure that lunch is a celebration of freshness. I go to Whole Foods and fix up a salad from their perfect salad bar, then get some sort of prepared tofu dish to make sure I’m getting my prot. Throw in an Odwalla Blueberry B Monster fruit smoothie, and I’m set. Fueled for the rest of the long day.

Plus the Odwalla makes my pee bright yellow because it has B vitamins in it, but that’s just a bonus.

Like I was saying yesterday (was it yesterday? Where am I?), my tour is just a baby tour. There are authors out there for four to six weeks at a time. The real workhorses. Yes, please, I’d like that to be me someday. I really like the work aspect of being an author. I like to work hard on my novels, then rest, and now I love the touring part, and rest.

So I’ve been trying to pay attention this week to what I’d do again, and what I wouldn’t. I brought way too many clothes, even though I’ve been doing this whole thing out of a carryon bag. I think I’ve done pretty well on the food, although I needed greater and easier access to some good white chocolate macadamia cookies. Don’t know what I’m going to do about that today. I’ve set my alarm early every morning (early as in 3:45 instead of 4:00) so I can do fifteen minutes of in-room yoga.

What hasn’t been working? As I predicted, the whole digestive system is a little out of whack. Not surprising considering all the time zones I’ve been crossing, the lack of regular exercise, the irregular access to cookies, etc.

The sleep thing hasn’t worked so well, either. I managed to catch about an hour on the flight today–in fact, I woke up with my mouth hanging open and a little drool on the side, which also makes me wonder if maybe I might have snored just a little in that ladylike way that my husband claims I do although I adamantly deny it. I mean, that I snore at all, not that if I did snore it would be ladylike. Bottom line, I don’t snore.

It’s time to take a shower, brush on some makeup, iron my pants, generally get into performance mode. But I’ve been eating my salad while writing this, so now I know I’ve taken care of myself for the day. Let them overfeed me tonight (please)–throw their best Tex Mex and desserts at me (I beg you)–but I know that as of now I’ve taken care of my nutrition. Good going.

Hope you’re all enjoying your Friday. I’m about to go enjoy mine.

Technorati Tags: Writing, Publishing, Book Tours, Author Tours, Whole Foods Is For Authors

Posted on Friday, March 23rd, 2007 at 9:40 am under Writing . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.