Holiday Travel Writing Tip

I visited the library yesterday to return a book before holiday travels. More people are familiar with the movie Up in the Air than the book, just as more people recognize the star, George Clooney, than the author, Walter Kirn.

There’s Walter, next to George, playing an uncredited conference room exec while Anna Kendrick tells the group how the global must become local. Glocal.

I’ll tell you why Walter’s book surprised me, what made the plot fly, and how other writers might achieve similar take-off.

I have to start with a travel incident from earlier this year when I wanted to book a room for the Saturday before Thanksgiving. I found myself frustrated by the limitations of the two hotel chains where I have “rewards” or “status” or “membership” or whatever.

My mood went from festive to angry to outraged in just a few clicks, until I abandoned the parameters set by these programs altogether, booking a room through a third-party vendor. The total came to half what it would cost to stay using either program, and my mood immediately improved.

Then I learned that, because I booked through a third party, the stay added zero points to the lowly oxymoron of my “silver elite” status. My mood soured again on thoughts of this fabricated, unregulated, parallel economy.

I spent a good part of my drive from Virginia to Connecticut crafting a plot about MyBux©, a centralized clearinghouse of rewards to replace the catalogue of FlyBux and BuyBux and Staybux and GasBux and SubBux* that already call me their member.

Most of us in this parallel economy already have some version of BuyBux—cash rewards for paying with credit. MyBux© takes it to a whole new level, consolidating all loyalty programs under a single umbrella. And because I’m a useless novelist, not a productive entrepreneur, the MyBux© loyalty program exists safely within the confines of my unwritten plot.

Which brings me to the lesson from Walter Kirn.

Me, in my sour mood, have yet to convert the world of MyBux© into anything more than a thinly veiled rant. Meanwhile, the otherwise dyspeptic Walter Kirn** had wisdom enough to dedicate his protagonist’s entire purpose toward achieving ten million frequent flyer miles on his carrier of choice. Ryan Bingham/George Clooney does so enthusiastically, energetically, with the eye-twinkling charm of a passenger you wouldn’t mind sitting beside on your next flight from hell. It makes for a great read.

So the tip is this: go ahead and let your characters embrace the suck.

In real life this holiday season, we’ll do the same by passing long drives – Virginia to Georgia, North Carolina, Connecticut – with a few audio books.

I welcome thoughts on these or substitute*** selections:

• And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie
• The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
• Watership Down – Roger Adams
• Echo – Pam Munoz Ryan

As for the library and my easy-chair, I picked up some biography (Mickey Spillane, Larry McMurtry, George Orwell) and a copy of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.

##

* For me, the Subway sandwich card represents the earliest loyalty program out there, buy six sandwiches and get the seventh on us. My first card was punched at the Vernon Golfland Subway, in those days the only one for hundreds of miles in any direction, an exotic location with intentionally-yellowed wallpaper depicting antiquated transit systems. The place has since closed.

** I mean this as a compliment. I discern this from his participation with Matt Taibbi on America This Week. He also appears opposite the loathsome Greg Gutfeld; I’m not sure his posture on that program.

*** The Martian gives too many fucks.