A few years ago, I separated from Random House after 30 years, it was a painful and difficult thing. We both wanted a change, and I know that publishing was changing quite radically, but they were really the only publisher I had known, and by the time I left them, there was really nobody left there to say goodbye to, no one that I knew. That is the story of our times, but it seemed quite sad to me.

By then, I had already thrown myself into the blog, which fit my need to write regularly and in a more timely way than books allow, and to write online, where most of my readers had gone. I signed a book contract with Simon & Schuster, and recently turned in “Talking To Animals,” the one book we had agreed to do together.

I have a good feeling about the book, and also about my new publisher, my editor there is smart, intuitive and he seems to trust authors. The book does not yet have a pub date, but I have been thinking a great deal about my future as a writer. I am committed to this blog, it is the centerpiece of my creative life and will remain so. People are even beginning to pay me for my work, it is exciting and affirming to be paid for my work again, sometimes I think I will actually survive this grand transition into the new world of writing.

I work with a freelance editor, Rosemary Ahern, and she has been an extraordinary support for me.

Like me, she left the fast track world – she was a hotshot editor in New York – to build a life for herself in the country.  She still edits books, but only the ones she likes and on her own terms.

She is a brilliant editor, and I do not believe I would still be writing without her. She edited “Talking to Animals,” and I sat down with her said I was unsure about my future, not certain whether or not I wanted to keep writing books or just stick to my blog, which is going well and has a large and committed following.

Since the Random House separation – everyone I knew was gone, and there was really no one left for me to talk to – I have not really felt like a book writer since. Rosemary told me that was wrong, I was a book writer to the bones, as well as a blog writer. I should not think of giving up either, one informs the other.

She said it was in my blood.

I tossed out some ideas and we talked about them. Today, I surprised myself by calling up my agent, Christopher Schelling of Selectric Artists, and I told him i wanted to write a sequel to Running To The Mountain, the book I wrote when I first came to the country and published in 2000. It was a spiritual adventure, a time to reflect and reassess the next phase of my life.

Up on that hill, I knew my life had to change, I just never imagined how much.

“Chris,” I said today, “I love pitching a book idea again, I feel like I got back something that I lost.”

The experience of running to the mountain changed my life, and everywhere I go, people come up to me with dog-eared copies of the book and tell me it changed their lives as well. I told Christopher I wanted to pick up the journey where I had left off, write about what happened to me, what spiritual and other lessons I learned.

And this is what my life was like for so many years, calling up editors, pitching exciting (for me) ideas. I almost forgot that I could do that. I loved doing it again. I suppose that is healing in the literal sense.

The spiritual adventure became a hero journey, I think, I left what was familiar and set off to find me and know my place in the world. It has been quite a trip – the first Bedlam Farm, harsh winters, dogs and animals, divorce, breakdown, open heart surgery, bankruptcy, blind ponies and stricken donkeys, recession and my work world turned upside down.

I think the point of it all was my search for love and connection. The book will be a spiritual book.

I found what I was looking for in a small village, it was Maria, having a partner and lover changed my life. I think that was what I wanted all along. Joseph Campbell says the fortunate people on the journey fall into darkness but are saved by magical  helpers. I had several.

For me, despite the challenges along the way, it is the happiest story of my life, a hopefully uplifting story.

So I’m writing a proposal for this sequel, I want to share the journey of self-discovery and the search for a meaningful life. I do want to do another book, I’m not ready to let it go. And I’ve learned that I don’t have to give up the blog to do it.

Talking to Christopher today, I realized that I am not done with books, I am still a book writer in many ways. If my new publisher wants the book, I’ll be happy to write it. I might rent another cabin around here and go there to think, as I did more than a decade ago with my two Yellow Labs, Julius and Stanley. I won’t live there, I have a rich life now, but i can go there to think and capture the experience of solitude.

Now, I am herding sheep with two other dogs, border collies named Red and Fate. Life is full of crisis and mystery, as I wrote in Running To The Mountain. I called Rosemary and told her the idea, she liked it very much. You will always be a book writer, she said, no matter what else you do.