I’m getting a number of emails from people who seem personally offended that the book tour isn’t taking me to their neck of the woods. Here’s the thing: I wish I could take an entire month off, with no responsibility other than to travel around and meet friendly people who appreciate the work I do. Seriously, it beats the hell out of actually doing the work. Unfortunately, the creative process I’ve settled into over the years just doesn’t lend itself to travel very easily. Between the weekly deadline and family responsibilities, it’s just not that easy for me to take off for extended chunks of time. I have a pretty good job, but unfortunately, I don’t have the freedom of time or movement of, say, a filmmaker or a musician.
This tour ended up focusing on the West Coast, mostly because of the parameters I set out for the publicist: I could afford to take one week off, max, and to get the most out of that time, I wanted to have a booksigning appearance every night. They were, for reasons I’m not entirely clear on, determined to send me to Los Angeles, and the rest developed from there.
Anyway, no one should feel slighted. It’s not like we had a meeting at the publisher’s office in which I sat around saying, “No way am I going to that shithole!” as various locales were suggested. When you have about 45 minutes of unscheduled time in any given city, tourism isn’t really the main consideration.