At age 57, Sara Davidson - former head writer and co-executive producer of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and author of Cowboy, a novel based on her relationship with an unlikely mate - found herself in the midst of a midlife crisis. She fled Los Angeles for Boulder and began to research a book about her predicament: Leap! What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives? The change of scenery fueled her journey from pessimistic victim of the aging process to a someone comfortable mature in middle age. In advance of her upcoming booksigning, she spoke to critic Sarah Peasley about following your intuition, "repotting the plant" and more.

Question: I know a lot of people who relate to your stories of how baby boomers are trying to enter middle age gracefully and productively. To read your recent online chat, it looks like you've struck a chord.

Answer: The response to the adaptation that ran in Newsweek, and to the online chat, was just overwhelming. Thousands of e-mails came in - from people of all ages, not just boomers - and from just as many men as women, which surprised me. The theme of them all was, "thank god somebody has put a name to what I'm going through."

Q: You write that you berated yourself for "failing" at work, at love, with your kids - what Buddhists call the second arrow. The first is the bad thing that happens. The second is what you do to yourself because of the bad thing that happened.

A: When I started the book, when I was in what I called the narrows, I was angry, miserable, I felt like a victim, I was negative, I was pessimistic. I didn't know what I would do for the next 30 years. I had no peace because I couldn't understand why I was still here. I had already written best sellers, put television shows on the air, been married twice, had deep love, raised two kids. There seemed nothing to engage me.

I think that so much that's written and said about getting older is kind of from a booster point of view: "You can stay young, you can look young, you can look great, you can do everything you always did and it's just going to be wonderful."

The fact is that very few people have talked about the truth, which is that there is this transition that happens when you realize you're not in the first half of your life any more. Your body is wearing down and there's a new generation coming up into the places you've been occupying and there are huge adjustments that need to be made. That can feel terrifying and overwhelming.

Q: You suggest that as people get older, they try to find some joy every day, learn something new, and connect with others. What other advice do you give people who are struggling?

A: It's not a how-to book. My intention is to inspire through story, through narrative. The message is that there's no one answer, there's no blueprint to get you to the other side. My old way of doing things wasn't working. So I finally just gave up and said, OK, my life has come to a stop. That's when I moved to Boulder in September 2002 and I've been there ever since.

Q: Why Boulder?

A: I had this intuition. My life in Los Angeles had come to a full stop and there was no reason for me to be there any more. I wanted to move. I also think it's good when you're in that place to "repot the plant," as I call it, to put yourself into a new environment, new soil, it can be nourishing and new things can sprout. So I was ready for new soil but I didn't know where.

I was literally sitting one night listening to music when the word "boulder" came to me like a word on a screen, it just flashed. I have been working with a spiritual teacher for many years who told me that you should pay attention to intuitive messages.

And her means of discovering whether a message is authentic is to do what she calls "lean into it" - start moving in that direction and if doors open, if it flows, it's probably a guidance, a knowing. If you run into a wall and nothing is going or supporting this, it's probably misguidance. I did some research, liked what I read about Boulder and I moved, without ever having been there or knowing a soul.

After four months in Boulder I had better quality friends and more of them than I had in Los Angeles after 28 years.

Q: You talk about wanting to "surrender" in the book and in the end I felt like you hadn't quite found that surrender. Maybe I wanted to read that you found a man or found a job, maybe I wanted it to be more concrete.

A: No, really? Why did you think I hadn't found it? For me the most concrete thing was the difference in my attitude toward the moment in the future.

Q: So all that research, all that reflection . . . what happened?

A: My attitude changed. I no longer mind that I don't know what's coming. After April, my datebook is empty, I have no projects, I have absolutely nothing. I came to understand that the fire for me was creative work and it didn't matter whether I was doing it pro bono or being paid, whether it was being published in The New York Times or published on my Web site. So that's the big change, in the shift from creating for an outcome, a purpose, a benefit, to just creating because I love the process.