When people learn that I live on a sailboat with my husband, young son, and three cats, they express one of two sentiments. Either “Wow, that’s so cool!” or a variation of “You must be nuts.” Both, of course, are true. It’s way cool. But you also have to be a little, let’s be kind and say, “eccentric,” to enjoy this gig.
Their follow-up comment is usually, “Hey, you could write a book.”
Yes. But not that book. I write fantasy for teens. If I’ve learned one thing about the interplay between my life and my fiction, it’s that experiences have to marinate for a while before they show up on the page. Even then, I can’t always map characters, emotions, or images directly to memory. So my next book won’t be a memoir relating anecdotes from our three years of cruising life: the wicked storms, the colorful nautical types, the theater playing live and unscripted every day on the VHF radio, wacky encounters with the Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, or the Mexican Navy.
