Reflections on sales and sails

Boarding the plane for the first leg home

Tonight, I am back in Florida sitting at my desk in my little one-room efficiency apartment after my flight on the little puddle jumper plane from Culebra to San Juan and the jet flight home. I’ve been reflecting back on my trip down to the Caribbean aboard Wild Matilda. Of the many people we met on other cruising boats, there is one couple that stands out in my memory. They spoke of cruising along the south coast of Haiti and visiting Ile-a-Vache, and they are one of the few boats I’ve ever met who visited Haiti – and that is resonating with me tonight.

I suppose we all have our bucket lists of places we want to visit, and Haiti is on mine. You see, I wrote my second novel CROSS CURRENT [image error]about the Haitian community here in South Florida, and looking back on my writing career now, I wonder if that subject matter influenced my writing career as much as the fact that my editor got canned, and I was “orphaned” at my publishing house. Americans seem to be uncomfortable talking or reading about Haiti –much less visiting the country.

Sometimes we writers are asked which of our novels is our favorite, and I always give the PC answer which is “I can’t answer that – I love them all.” But if I am really, really honest, CROSS CURRENT holds a very special place in my heart kind of like a dog who is so homely it’s cute. Haiti is like that stray dog that’s got mange and fleas and that beaten-down look, and you just don’t know if you try to reach out to him whether he will bite your hand – and yet he steals your heart.

When Ballantine first released that book, it did not sell well, and now that I have the rights back and I have re-released the book, it isn’t doing very well under my watch either. Right now, CIRCLE OF BONES has 54 reviews on Amazon and SURFACE TENSION has 38 reviews. Most of those have all been written based on my new digital editions. But my poor little baby CROSS CURRENT only has 7 customer reviews. That book is still the runt of the litter.

I know very well when I set out to write a book that I am not trying to write the Great American Novel. I am in the entertainment business. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t write about something that matters to me. I don’t think writers should use their fiction to push some social or political agenda, yet we need to be passionate to write a good story. When it comes to Haiti and all the wonderful people I have met who come from that island, I feel that passion. But then again, I’ve always cheered for the underdog.

So, when I met the family aboard the S/V Sunrise in Salinas, Puerto Rico and they told us about taking a load of old blown-out sails to Haiti through an organization called Sails for Sustenance (located right here in South Florida), I knew I wanted to learn more about the organization. This group recycles sails by collecting them and sending them down to be distributed to the fishermen in Haiti where they can change lives. Check out this video and notice how it looks like the fishermen are trying to use plastic sheeting for sails before they get some Dacron.

The story about Sunrise is on the Sails for Sustenance page here: http://sailsforsustenance.org/2012/04/17/sails-delivered-to-haiti-by-s-v-sunrise/

I have a blown-out genoa in storage. I haven’t known what to do with the thing, and now I’m glad I didn’t pitch it into a dumpster. I have affiliations with three different sailing clubs here in the Fort Lauderdale area, and I’m going to see just how many sails I can collect from my friends. Have any of you got old sails? Start your own collections and I promise to help you get them down to Miami.

See cruising is really entertainment, too, and for me anyway, I need to feel like what I am doing matters. Whether it is writing entertainment or living entertainment, there has to be that something that makes it more than just personal satisfaction.

I don’t know what I’m doing next or where I’m going at the end of the hurricane season next fall, but my eyes have been focused on the Caribbean. I’ve been contemplating taking my own boat down there. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to scratch another item off my sailing bucket list and take my sails down there myself.

Fair winds!

Christine

 

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