Book Tour Journal, Day 5, Novi, MI

Tuesday, 03.11.2008, Novi, MI

Another night short on sleep and early to rise – my schedule was bound and determined to retrain my body to embrace the eastern time zone. At around 7:00 a.m. my media escort for the day, Shirley, picked me up and we made our way to Novi High School where I would talk with a few classes of writers. Unfortunately, there was a last-minute change and because of testing, I would only be presenting to one class. Fortunately, there was a techie there waiting to video tape me for a quick clip about WAKE and about my visit, so that was cool. After the school visit, I had a few hours of free time and I took advantage of the Internet access to catch up on a few things.

Later I checked out of the hotel and met up with Shirley again for lunch, and then we set out to visit bookstores to sign stock (we also dropped off my rental car so I wouldn’t have to worry about that later in the evening when I was on my way to catch my flight). We probably hit about 6 stores and I seriously can’t tell you where we stopped. But I do know we ended up back in Novi, which was great since that’s where my book signing would be.

I happily got to see more family (the in-laws, this time) and also a new media specialist friend, Jill Morgan, from Flat Rock High School. With her she brought three students and the five of us had a terrific chat before things got started. It was another decent showing and it was great to see my family again, even if it was just for a short time. Also great was seeing Deb, my former boss from my early bookstore days – what a treat! She hired me when I was 17.

Shirley, who was watching the clock, hustled me out the door because I had a 10PM flight to catch that would deliver me to Chicago. Borders in Novi, you rock – thanks for a great event! After a nice flight, I arrived and was whisked away by one of those guys in a suit carrying a sign with my name on it. He then drove me to my sister’s condo, where I’d make my bed that night and two nights after. It was so great to see my sis and brother-in-law – hadn’t seen them since they got married in October. But it was so late that we all just crashed, because Wednesday would be another early morning.