I’m going to New York City Thursday to do something I’ve been doing for three decades – pitching book ideas to a publisher. Last week I decided to leave my long-time publisher and set out into the Emerald City to find another publisher who will buy my books and publish them. It was very tempting to stay there, it was very necessary to go. It was frightening and exhilarating, something I knew I had to do several years ago.

I have no idea what the marketplace will make of me, who might want me to write about them. Five years ago, when the recession hit and publishing as I knew it ceased to exist, my agent at the time suggested that I might be over. Mid-list writers, she said, especially older ones who didn’t have 20 more books to write, were not selling well any longer, publishers were cutting back. Perhaps I might go and get a puppy and write about it. Books like that, she said, were selling, the editors would love a book like that, she could definitely sell a cut puppy  book.

She was shocked at my response, I said it was a surprising and offensive thing for me to hear. For one thing, I said, puppies ought not be bought so somebody can write a book about them. It’s not a good reason to get one. For another, I don’t want to write a cute puppy book. I suspect I would be moving on soon enough. It’s not their fault, it’s mine, I have just not ever been able to jump in the river and flow with the current.

I decided then that I was not ready to be over, I poured my heart and soul into my books and into my photos and my life with animals and my blog. bedlamfarm.com is getting four million views a year now, my photographs are shared all over the place, I am cruising towards 20,000 likes on Facebook.

I am going to New York to discover the next chapter in my writing life, to see if there is an editor and a publisher who wants to get married. You never know. One or two seem excited about me, I have a new agent who likes and respects what I do.  I was stung  by what my agent said five years, I sometimes do wake up in the night and wonder if I am over. But that is just middle-of-the-night craziness, it does not last, fear is just a space to cross, a geography to nowhere.

I always seem to end up in New York when I seek to give rebirth to life, it has always seen the city of promise for me, the Emerald City.

I am still not ready to be over.

I choose to remain relevant.

I am just learning how to be creative.

I have important books to write.

People exploit animals all of the time for their own purposes, and I don’t wish to do it, but the carriage horses have been good for me, they are angels come to refresh my creative spirit, make sure the creative spark is shining brightly inside of me. They remind me how much I love what I do, how precious it is to be a writer, to search for the truth, it is the only thing I have ever wanted to do.

The horses have shown me that my creative spirit, the spiritual force by which all human accomplishment – my writing – will be attained and accounted for. Like my donkey Simon, I hear from the call to life, I intend to answer it.

The Hebrews and the Iroquois called it Orenda, it is magic force, it is my song. Tomorrow I will take it to New York and see what I see about my life as a writer. The horses, like all the other animals I have know, teach me acceptance.

I choose to not be over. I am just beginning.