On New Year’s Eve, Athene Burke, a friend, musician and card reader read my cards. It would be an important time for me, she said. I would be going my own way with my work, trusting myself, going out on some limbs. It would not be easy, she said, pulling the “Warrior Card.” She said I was a “warrior for my work, for my creativity.” She said I needed to really trust this direction,  trust myself and the directions in which I wanted to go, and believe in it, they were the right things for me.

This, she said, was coming from me, not a publisher, an agent, an editor or anyone else. It would be challenging and difficult at times, but I would be successful. I didn’t think all that much of the reading at the time, but her words keeps coming back to haunt me. This past year, I have chosen to break away, to take responsibility for my creative life. I shocked my writer friends by asking Random House to forego a conventional book tour in favor of one led by my blog and social media outlets. The tour was successful, the “Second Chance Dog” has had three printings, my local bookstore sold more than 1,000 copies for me to sign.

I decided last year that the blog was the focal point of my creative life, not something to sandwich in between “important work.” I began a subscription program that gave my readers an opportunity to pay me for my work and photography if they could and if they wished. I published my own e-book original, “Listening To Dogs.” I began a podcast series. I have recorded a “Ted Talk” which will be published online in the next few weeks.

And now, my instincts have taken me in a completely new and profoundly significant direction: To Kickstarter.com where I have raised more than $9,000 in 48 hours to buy me a sophisticated and expensive new camera to record images of the animals I live with and more time to work on my 15-year project, “Talking To Animals.”

My project has been funded, pledges continue to come in to support my work, they will be coming in for 27 more days.

Kickstarter has provided a powerful affirmation and launch of this project, it promises to transform many of my notions of creativity and generating money for my work. I am humbled by the enthusiastic and generous response to my idea, I am gaining strength as I seek to redefine my creativity, my relationship to my readers and new community. To be honest, Athena was almost shockingly perceptive. I hope I am a warrior for my work, I have strong instincts about it, I am following my instincts and they are working for me.

Creativity is about putting oneself out there in the most literal sense of the world, about opening yourself up to the world, standing almost naked before the universe and declaring, “I am worth something, I have something to say, I will gather the strength to say it.”  There is always risk, always danger. It could have been very difficult for me to have seen this idea rejected so publicly, yet I knew I had to take the risk. The result has been an affirmation, not a rejection. So the New Year’s eve predictions seem to be coming true.  I am going my own way, re-building a creative life nearly shattered by storms beyond my control – the recession, a divorce, the revolution in publishing. I  have never stopped fighting for my creative life, I never will, it is God’s greatest gift to me, and to Maria also, she is a fellow warrior for her life and work, we stand beside one another every day in this determination.

This year will take me to new and challenging places. It already has, and I am grateful so many of you are coming along with me.