Animal Wisdom: What the Animals Didn’t Let Me Forget While Writing Raising Artemis
- Christine Baker
- Jan 29
- 3 min read
I had been thinking about writing a book centered on my animals for years. Not a memoir. Not a collection of stories. Something truer than that—but I couldn’t quite see the shape of it yet.
I knew the animals mattered. I just didn’t know how they wanted to be told.
Then COVID arrived, and like so many others, my world shifted overnight. I began writing during that strange, suspended time—initially thinking about the toll the pandemic was taking on health care workers, on compassion, on people who kept showing up long after they were empty. I wrote without a map. Without certainty. I just kept going.
What I’ve since learned is that I’m a pantser, not a plotter. I don’t outline first. I listen first. I think. I sit with things. I let the story organize itself quietly in the background before it ever touches the page.
The first draft of Raising Artemis came quickly—about three or four months. But that wasn’t the real work. After that came a full year of editing, reshaping, revising, and playing. I never rushed this book. I never wanted to. It mattered too much.
I needed time—not just to get the story right, but to understand my own love for the animals who inspired it. They aren’t symbols. They aren’t metaphors. They are characters. And they deserved to be written with care.
Early readers often assume Artemis is me. She isn’t. Not at all.
The only true reality in the book is the animals—their personalities, their rhythms, their quiet authority. They are exactly who they were in life. I simply listened.
For years, I pitched this story to agents and publishers. Hundreds of them. Enough rejection letters that I could probably wallpaper a room or two in my house.
The responses were almost always the same: Good writing. Beautiful story. But it doesn’t fit neatly into a category.
I used to wonder when “doesn’t fit” became a flaw. Isn’t that the point of storytelling? To see from a new angle? To let something unfamiliar exist?
There were moments I lost hope. People suggested self-publishing. And while there is absolutely nothing wrong with that path, something deep inside me knew this story would find a mainstream home. Not because of ego—but because of timing.
So I kept going. Quietly. Patiently. I trusted what the animals had already taught me.
Now, in winter—when everything slows and planning takes over—I can see it clearly. Things arrive when they’re ready. Not when we’re impatient. Not when we push. But when we’ve done the work of staying. Isn't that what animals teach us every day?
I think back to being a college student, sitting in front of my dorm window late at night, dreaming of writing a novel someday. I remember missing my family pets so fiercely it felt physical. I remember bringing my yellow Labrador Retriever, Willie, to siblings’ weekend—because he was my brother.
Somewhere along the way, the animals never forgot that dream. Even when I did.
What they didn’t let me forget—while writing Raising Artemis—was this:
Stories don’t need forcing. Love doesn’t need justification.And the right path often reveals itself only after you’ve proven you’re willing to walk it slowly.
They waited.
And they were right.
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