Life on a book tour sometimes hit and miss

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Book tours and readings. They can be an author's best friend provided you sell oodles and oodles of books allowing you, as a Canadian writer, the option of ordering a better class of cable television. Or it can be your worst nightmare - you sell none and lose your precious television.

Seven books and many tours later, by some bizarre miracle, I still have not lost the urge to write, though I suffer from a clinical term referred to as BTS - Book Tour Syndrome. Trust me, I know the pain. I'm a book tour survivor. We're talking about starting up a support group. The syndrome is characterized by a lack of sleep due to continuous one-night stands (unfortunately not the fun kind), far too much travel in too short a time, and really bad diets caused by the incessant travel. Is it any wonder writers have a reputation for heavy drinking?

As Murphy's Law dictates - and I must first add that Murphy wrote his law and therefore must be classified as a writer - on a book tour, whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Again, I'm a survivor so I can prove it. Case in point - on one tour I was traveling from a reading in Regina to Calgary via a small commuter plane. Once there I was to catch a connecting flight to Edmonton to do a subsequent reading. Somewhere high above the Prairies, the pilot's voice came over the intercom. He cleared his throat a few times, then announced that "due to mechanical difficulties," the plane was opting to land for an unscheduled stop in Medicine Hat.

The sudden and nervous looks from the other passengers mirrored my own. Mechanical difficulties. Two truly ominous words, especially at 20,000 feet. I had sudden images of Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline, Lynard Skynard, Rick Nelson and a host of other singers whose planes had suffered "mechanical difficulties." Luckily, I could not come up with one single Native playwright/writer who had perished in such a circumstance. Yet.

For the first time in my life, I was grateful I wasn't a rock star.

We landed safely at the Medicine Hat airport, which, by the way, was closed on this wintry Sunday, which meant no food, no personnel until a new plane was flown in a few hours later. As it turned out, something was wrong with the previous plane's air conditioning. It was November. You wouldn't think this would normally be an issue.

As a result of this excitement, I ended up missing my flight to Edmonton, and had to wait a further two hours for the next one. Once finally in the air enroute to the fair city of Edmonton, I was told we would be landing in the first big blizzard of the year. Huge snowdrifts and blowing snow made the landing and the trip into town a little difficult. Visions of the cab being blown into a snowdrift and having to eat the cab driver till the spring thaw, dogged my imagination. But being a survivor, I rushed from the cab, crawled over a growing snowdrift, and made my way into the bookstore, only 10 minutes late, ready for my reading. There were three people there. One was a friend who was obligated. One was a photographer. He too was obligated.

Later that night, I was scheduled to read at a Metis jamboree somewhere on the outskirts of Edmonton. I showed up, ready and willing to dazzle them with my literary repartee.

First notice of a potential problem: it was a bar. A busy, crowded bar.

There was a country band wailing away in full country mode. People were dancing and drinking. Big cowboy hats and even bigger belt buckles were everywhere. It was basically a honky tonk party. Something deep down inside me said that these people probably, more than probably, I'd say almost positively, weren't exactly in the mood for a play reading. Images of the country bar scene from the Blues Brothers movie screamed into my consciousness.

Only I didn't see any chicken wire.

More recently I had been requested to do a reading at the Chapters bookstore in downtown Toronto. I showed up, all eager and excited, prepared to burn the place down with my heated verbal it. One problem. They evidently didn't advertise my heated verbal wit. Or more horrifying, maybe they did and nobody cared because. . . nobody was there for the reading. Empty. Desolate. Silent. Off in the distance, I thought I could hear a coyote howling. It was quite humbling.

But there is only one thing worse then nobody showing up for your reading. That's when just one or two, even three people show up and expect you to do a reading. That's when you feel really uncomfortable. You're giving your everything in a reading, knowing one person out there is listening. You don't want to cheat them but you can't help thinking, "One person! Only one person. That's all?! I'm reading up here for 30 or 40 minutes. And if I'm lucky, one person may - may - buy one whole book!" I think the down payment on that Lamborghine is a little ways down the road.

In all fairness, these are the negative sides of life in the touring trenches. I have also had many wonderful and fun things happen at readings. Luckily the good experiences outweigh the bad. That's why I still love doing them. They can be a great opportunity to introduce the public to some new work you are doing, a chance to meet new friends, hopefully sell some books, and get free travel. Who can argue with that?

Still, the spectre of Book Tour Syndrome still haunts me sometimes. I still have the nightmares. Occasionally I hear voices, voices that have actually said stuff like "I'm a really big fan of yours. I just love your stuff. Really I do. My favorite is that short story you wrote about you and your brother taking your dead father home in a coffin through a Singing a New Songsnowstorm. That really touched me."

" That's wonderful," I remember saying to this sincere woman. "I'm really delighted. But I didn't write that. That's Brothers In Arms by Jordan Wheeler."

But then again, I've done enough of these things maybe I did write that one. Could Jordan Wheeler please let me know.