I looked over the pasture and saw Vince’s truck with gravel backing into the pasture, and I saw Red going into his herding crouch.”Do Not Herd This Truck,” I shouted, and I called Red off and he came back to me. They say border collies are smart, and they are, but border collies can also be very dumb. I had visions of Red ending up in the gravel bed.
Step Two: Vince digs out the much before laying the pipe.
I was first published when I was 10 years old, I wrote a letter to the Providence Journal talking about the traffic problems in front of Hope High School. When the letter was published, I knew I was going to be a writer, that was my destiny. The thought first came into my mind reading a book when I was eight, and was then reinforced by a librarian at the Rochambeau Avenue Branch. She told me my books would be on the shelf one day, and a few years ago, I went back to visit the library in a snowstorm. She was gone, but the library was there. I have never wanted to be anything but a book writer, that has been my proudest identity, the joy and passion of my life. It is where my heart and soul is, and I know that however much I change and my world changes, I will die with my life as a book writer in my head.
My world has changed, and it is both exciting and wonderful and painful and sorrowful, bittersweet. For decades, my sole employer was my publisher, I have only had one publisher, and I made enough money for 30 years to support my family comfortably, send my daughter to Yale, and put some money away. I never imagined being anything else. A few years ago, all of that began to change, my life was upended personally and professionally. I am still a book writer, but that is no longer enough for me to sustain myself and my life. Hardcover books sales, the cornerstone of my income, have dropped significantly.
I saw the changes coming, but never dreamed how sweeping and radical they would be.
Now, I am many things, I am a book writer, a podcaster, a blogger, a photographer, an e-book writer, a speaker, I run a farm, I maintain a diverse presence on various social media. Money does not come from the top down, but from the bottom up.
A writer e-mailed me yesterday and she said I was a pioneer, I was blazing the way, I was on the frontier. I was surprised by that, I am hardly the first person to have a blog and a Facebook page. I do not feel like a pioneer, but I do feel that I am on the frontier, my identity is changing. I am grateful to have started my blog in 2007, when it was not common for writers to do that. Writing books is only one of the things I do, and I am not certain how much longer I will be doing that. I love writing books, but the world is moving as fast or faster than I am. I have two more books to do for Random House – one is “Second Chance Dog” out this November, and the next is about me and Simon and Rocky and Red, a story exploring the various prisms of mercy and compassion.
As the value of books decline in our culture, the value of blogs increases. I love my blog, it is never work for me, it just flows from me and my life. It just makes me more and more creative, from the writing to the photography to the thinking to the podcasts. Last week I offered a series of subscription options and I see that people are comfortable with that, and I also see that it is my future. I might actually have a regular income again, I can smell it.
I’ve said for years that the blog is the book, it is my running, living memoir, it is the most vibrant, ascending, creative part of my life for the most part. I am excited about the books I am writing, they are good in my mind, I am proud of them, I will fight for them, even if I am the only one doing the fighting or the last one. I am letting go of my fantasies about the big book, the one that will clear my debts, settle my future. I just want to publish a good book.
It is hard for me to accept all of this, just as it is exciting. The blog feels right for me. So do subscriptions, this is the future, this is the frontier. When I began the blog, it was an appendage to the real work, now it is becoming the real work. I have a right to be paid for my work, of course, you have the right to good and meaningful work for the money. So this, I see, is where we are heading. I was uncomfortable about offering subscriptions, but it seems I was the only one. I don’t know where books are going, I believe they will be around for a long time and I hope to write a bunch more. But I am excited to be on the new frontier, as frightening and challenging as it is. Along with my writing about animals, the blog and my podcasts will feature regular reports from this frontier and I have the growing sense it is the place for me, my place, my creative fount, my voice to the world.
I see now the blog is like a book, it cannot, of course, just be free any more than I could give books away for free. If books were the ten year-old’s dreams, then this older man imagines a best-selling blog, of great relevance and value to many thousands of people. Something of value, something worth paying for. I guess I am switching dreams, a monumental step for me. The subscriptions signal the beginning of this change. I understand completely when people message me to say they do not have enough money even for a small contribution, I respect that and they are welcome here. But in our world, writers and artists cannot give their work away for free and hope to survive any more than anyone else can. That, I suppose, is standing in the new truth.
I guess I have to re-imagine the image of myself in my head, and the important parts remain. I am a writer still, a story teller. I am a photographer too, an observer, a pilgrim on the spiritual path. I love change, but never imagined confronting so much all at once. The idea of the writing is changing, as is the idea of the book. As with so much of life, there is the bitter and the sweet, and the challenge for me is not to avoid change or lament and complain about it, but to handle it well. Truth is, I am proud to be on this new frontier. It is where I belong.
Lulu is keeping a close eye on the digging and pipe work. She knows her time is coming. I was yelling at her, “pay attention, Lulu, your ass will be over into that pasture.” Ass to ass.
Vince Vecchione and his co-worker Pat showed up with a pipe I call “Lulu’s Pipe,” it is a 20 foot smooth bottom pipe designed to keep water flowing and not clog. It is going behind the pasture gate. He just headed back to pick up some gravel and digging equipment. See what Lulu has wrought. Perhaps one e-mailer was correct, maybe she just wanted something nicer to walk over, maybe she doesn’t want to get her feet muddy. Vince is the real deal, a Jersey guy who fled that crowded and smelly place decades ago, he is a straight-shooter and he knows his water and mud. I invited my friend Jack Macmillan over – he recommended Vince – and it is always inspiring to me to meet men who understand how things work.
Vince just picked the pipe up and pulled it onto the ground.
These men instinctively talk to Maria rather than me, as they sense she knows how things work too. Lulu is watching closely from the sheep pasture.
