Why I Want to be an Author

I want to become an author.

It all started in 2020.

But we need to step back in time to December 2019 when I accepted a severance package from my employer of over 25 years and said goodbye to my work community. I wouldn’t miss the bureaucracy and the inefficiencies, but I would miss the people…at least, most of them.

I had a growing sports and event photography business at the time and I had started to coach — although I never advertised.

Then COVID-19 hit.

My email became filled with messages like “Unfortunately due to CO-VID 19, the race has been cancelled.” Coaching clients were few and far between.

With an empty calendar, I had no choice but to embrace my introverted self and lean into solitude.

I watched documentaries, videos, movies, and got sucked into Insta reel rabbit holes regularly.

I read articles, blogs, books, and Twitter threads.

My world expanded rapidly and my sensitivities to inequalities, racism, sexism and other ills of the world became heightened.

I began to write and reflect.

One pivotal moment for me was watching Ava DuVernay’s Netflix film “13th”, a thought-provoking documentary about the criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.

The film referenced a book written in the early 1900s which chronicled and heroically portrayed the Ku Klux Klan. It was later turned into a play and a movie. (If you want to know the name of this book, you will have to watch “13th” to find it. But don’t stop there — watch the whole thing. You will never look at the US prison system the same.)

I was feeling powerless to make a difference.

Then it hit me.

Books have a way of lasting decades and sometimes centuries. In fact, think of everything we know today. How much of that came from books written decades ago?

If it’s not written down and codified in a book, it will rarely be remembered well, if at all.

Not only do books last, they hold power for those who want to wield it, whether for good or for evil.

That’s when I realized I wanted to help use the power I have to create a vision for a better world, where people around me are allowed to show up wholly, without the chains of race, gender, and poverty.

I would become an author whose books would help paint the picture of a world I want to live in.

I’m pretty sure you would want to live there with me.

Because it is a world we will build together.

So will you help me?

Building on 25 years working in a large, complex organization, Tammy Brimner is a leadership consultant and coach with a passion for leadership development and improved organizational culture. Tammy is a Certified Organizational Coach and a professional photographer. She is also a writer, an aspiring author, singer/songwriter, a fair weather golfer, a cyclist and an amateur yogi.

Follow Tammy on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tammy-brimner