My dog Riley is not a six pound Pom-Chi. Oh, he may look that way on the surface, but in his heart, he is a German Shepherd, or a Collie, or even possibly a Mastiff. Whatever the breed, he desperately believes himself to be a Farm Dog.

As any good Farm Dog would, he LOVES the snow. If the temperature is any kind of bearable, he wants to be outside. Sniffing, shuffling, checking on the chickens, surveying his land.

In truth, his actual favorite thing to do is for me to go outside with him. When I do, he likes to get as far away in the field as possible and then wait for me to call him. I know this. I know what my role is and I fulfull it for him. He is the star of his own action movie, and I’m the director. When he’s far enough away, I whistle and call him back.

“ACTION!”

The moment he has waited for! The whistle has sounded. The call has gone out. Riley bolts toward me, running as fast as his tiny, rabbit-like legs will carry him. Today, this particular snow is literally over his head, but that doesn’t deter him. He just jumps over top of it, leaping, running, leaving any and all obstacles in his literal dust.

His inner monologue no doubt runs as such, “SNOW!!! I WILL RUN THROUGH ALL THE SNOW! I WILL BE THE FASTEST AND THE BEST AND THE FASTEST AND SNOW WILL NOT DEFEAT ME!!!! I CAN DO THIS BECAUSE— I AM A FARM DOG!!!!!”

Watching him, I feel like there is a huge lesson for me. Inside, I feel like a six pound Pom-Chi. I feel like this book project is totally over my head, that I don’t know what I’m doing, and that I’m going to be swallowed whole by the towering mass of work that it involves.

With nine days left, I’m actually entering the final stretch. Jillian has given me the book revisions, and now I have to do final corrections.

The whistle has sounded. The call has gone out. Time to run to home. Time to leap over the problems that are bigger than me. Time to run with wild abandon toward the finish line. It’s time to be a conquering German Shepherd or Collie or Mastiff.

It’s time to be a Farm Dog.

Right at 35 days before my 35th birthday, Rachael and I found out that a book we wrote about our experience making our first film “No Lost Cause,” was being returned to us by the publisher after a year of waiting for it to be printed. Instead of wallowing in our collective misery, I committed to blogging every day while I searched for ways to overcome this perceived rejection and obstacle to our goal. I currently also have about three other projects brewing at the same time, and write about the progress of each of them. This is part of that series.

Read the first entry here: https://ashleyraymerbrown.com/2015/01/23/35-days-to-35-dealing-with-rejection/