Writing After Fifty
With passing years, writing becomes our most trustworthy friend. Wherever we go there it is! It paces with us as we enter the autumn and winter of our lives. We age. Writing is ageless. So many writers, still in their forties and fifties, feel an urge to write full time. They leave a paying job when they can afford to do so, to follow their writing passion, to fulfill their dream of getting a manuscript completed and the book published.
In an interview with Gabriel Packard, Walter Mosley, who began writing at 34, said, “If you come to something later in life, and you’ve been beaten down enough-your ego’s been beaten down enough for you to think, “Well, I might actually be a failure at life” (as a writer)-I think that’s probably good for you. You should do it (writing) because you like doing it. And once you start doing work for that reason, then you’re going to be happier… and better.” (The Writer, November 2011),
James Lee Burke also wrote his first book at age 34. He faced a dry spell of thirteen years and 111 rejections. Yet it did not discourage him. He kept writing and in 1989 he hit the literary jackpot with his sixth book, Black Cherry Blues. Now at age 75 he has been doing what he loves to do, writing full time. Burke’s latest release, Feast Day of Fools is his 30th novel and according to him his best work. (Writer’s Digest, November/December 2011)
Never ever get discouraged! Whether you’re fifty or eighty if you never stop writing, if you continue your daily writing practice you will undoubtedly succeed. The only way to success is to write, write, write everyday. Real writers never quit, can’t quit. Eventually, the flow of writing comes to them as naturally as the sunrise to the day. They write for the love of writing.