Are You A Writer Carrot?

by Kimberly A. Cook         (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

The first full week of this year left me with a mashup of experiences. While this is not unusual for any week, how they all intertwined into a theme surprised me, so I’m combining them here.

On New Year’s Eve I was dashing from the garage to the back of the house and saw a flash of orange in farmer bunny’s cement wheelbarrow. “What is that?” There are not really any colors in the backyard right now besides the cold green herbs and the crazed red blooming Christmas Camilla, much to the delight of the hummingbirds.

Turns out I forgot to harvest the mini-carrots I planted in bunny’s planter. They kept growing. Since the first good freeze was coming that night, I quickly grabbed the small shovel, mucked them into a plastic lettuce tin and brought them inside for clean up. Harvesting on New Year’s Eve, a nice surprise.

Next I picked up one of Elizabeth Berg’s books I had in the read pile and started in on “The Pull Of The Moon.” Great book. It explores the challenges of women turning 50 and how dealing with change affects us. Two pages near the end of the book really touched me, particularly one sentence: “but the meat of the thing was this; you accept change in your life or you might as well be dead.” Blunt and true.

Then a vendor from my day job referred a writer to me who wanted to know about publishing. Since I try to keep my day and writing jobs separate, once again the worlds crashed together. I sent him a few quick tips by email about indie publishing and our Willamette Writers group. He responded that he wanted to submit his work for someone to publish. Ah. Huge topic to try to explain today’s traditional vs. indie publishing business models. But it reminded me I’ve learned a lot on this publishing adventure, including to watch our for pirates and scallywags.

So I will post a blog next week about starting from the beginning for new writers and recycle one of my previous blog posts about figuring out what type a career you want before you choose indie or traditional publishing. Will try to give a “Reader’s Digest” condensed version as opposed to the “War and Peace” tomb this could require.

So how does all this mashup together? I’m a writer carrot. At the age of 10 I knew I was a writer and I wrote. My writing journeyed through youth romance fiction, poetry, high school journalism, plays, newspaper journalist and photojournalist, public relations writer, romance fiction, magazine writer, screenplays, web writer, non-fiction author, online media manager, videographer and back to romance fiction. Still writing, still changing, still learning.

The lesson in every New Year we might miss is if we look back and forward, we figure out as writers we’re lifelong learners who keep growing where we’re planted regardless of technology or life changes. That gives me a great deal of comfort as I try to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. However, I can say, “I’m proud to be a writer carrot.” Grow on!