Do you ever find yourself thinking things like, “I’m too old to start this”, “I’m too late”, “I’ve wasted too much time”, or “I’ve missed my chance, so why bother”? In today’s episode, we’re talking about comparison, regret, and why it’s NEVER too late to start writing, publishing, or even learning a new creative skill.
The Lost Time Fallacy
It’s so easy — for me, at least — to compare myself to other writers (like we talked about back in Episode 88). Especially if they’re younger than I am. When I see someone who’s 16, 21, 27, etc. publishing their first (or second or third) book, I have a tendency to immediately think about how far behind I am. How much time I wasted in my early 20s by… what was I doing in my 20s? Working in a cubicle, angry and alone and miserable.
But did I actually waste my time in my 20s, or did I need to go through what I went through to get where I am now, close to 40 and finally living the life I’ve always dreamed of living?
Usually, we’re precisely where we need to be — where we’ve placed ourselves — and if we’re not, it’s up to us to figure out where we want to be and get there.
And it’s not too late to get there. If you’re listening to this episode or reading these show notes, chances are you’re still alive — and alive is a great place to be, especially if you want to accomplish something.
It’s important to remember we haven’t lost anything — we’ve taken the time to get to this moment in our lives, and the only place we can take action is in the present.
It helps me to remember: the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but since we can’t go back in time to do that, the second best time is NOW.
Writers Who Published Later In Life
There are scores of famous writers who got a “late start” — who didn’t make that Forbes “30 Under 30” list, who didn’t even consider writing until they hit their fourth decade or beyond. For example:
- Toni Morrison published her first book, The Bluest Eye, at the age of 40.
- Mark Twain (yes, the very famous Mark Twain) didn’t publish his first book, An Innocent Abroad, until he was 41.
- J.R.R. Tolkien published his first (and soon very famous) novel, The Hobbit, at the age of 45.
- Anna Sewell began writing at age 51 and didn’t publish her first book, Black Beauty, until she was 57.
- Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the famous “Little House On the Prairie” books, didn’t publish her first book until she was 64.
- Frank McCourt published his first book, Angela’s Ashes, at the age of 66… and then went on to win the Pulitzer.
This isn’t even just a list of authors who published books later in life — this is a list of authors who didn’t even start writing until later in life. Yet none of these writers were “too late”. They arrived on the writing scene exactly when they needed to. Just like you.
Forestall Those Regrets
If you find yourself thinking about all the time you’ve “lost”, or all of the books you haven’t published yet, one of the ways you can center yourself is by thinking about all of the future regrets you can forestall today.
What will you regret not having done on your deathbed, or even 10 years from now? Writing your memoir? Publishing your first manuscript? Submitting your poem to that contest? What action can you take now to make sure you don’t have that regret later on?
Life hasn’t passed you by. If you’re listening to this episode or reading these show notes, you’re alive and you have plenty of time within the now to create your art.
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Full Episode Transcript (click to expand!)
This is The Write Now Podcast with Sarah Werner, Episode 117: It’s Not Too Late.
Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring professional, and otherwise, to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner.
And today I am wondering if you’ve ever felt like it’s too late for you. If it’s too late to start writing, if it’s too late to start publishing, if you’re too old, if you’ve somehow missed your window or ruined your supposed one and only chance.
This is a question that I’ve asked myself a lot. And it’s a question that I also see asked very often in my Wednesday and Friday evening creator longs. And it’s not hard to see why. Here in the United States, we live in a very youth forward culture, whether that is fair or not to the youth themselves is up for debate, but it feels like the younger that you can do something, the more lauded you will be.
Wow. She published her first book and she’s only 19 or wow, that Olympic gymnast who just won the gold medal 16 years old. Wow. This is something that I thought a lot about as I slowly and steadily grew older than those 16-year-old gymnasts than the 19-year-old football players. The people who published that outstanding award-winning novel at 24 or 25 years old. The people who made the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
I felt like I was watching something very slowly and yet all too quickly passed me by. But were these things really passing me by? Or was I simply in a place where I wasn’t ready for them yet? Or in the case of the Olympic gymnast, was I comparing myself to someone else using a standard of dreams that I had never held in the first place?
It’s so easy to feel like you are in the passenger seat of a car that is being driven way too fast and completely out of your control. And often that’s exactly the case. Often we don’t have control over our own situations.
I did not ever have a chance of becoming that 16-year-old Olympic metal winning gymnast because growing up, we didn’t have the money for gymnastics lessons. I also do not have the genetics to become a gymnast. I am extremely tall and I have asthma and scoliosis and all of these things.
Something that’s a little closer to home, I do remember going to the library as a child. And at the time there was this series of books and they were hardbound picture books. And they were written and illustrated by children who had won this young authors contest. And I remember reading these books and checking them out. And I had so many huge emotions at the time. I remember feeling in awe that people my age could be living this dream. I felt jealous that they had somehow had a chance to get their books published. That somehow a door had opened for them.
I felt a little bit resentful that I had not had this opportunity. And I felt at the age of, I don’t know, seven, eight, nine years old, that it was too late, that these other young authors were ahead of me. And then I could not hope to ever catch up.
I know that sounds a little silly saying that now. It’s like, “Oh Sarah, young Sarah, you have your whole life ahead of you.” But at the time it didn’t feel like it. At the time, it felt like I had lost my one and only chance.
Today as I near my forties, I’ve gained a little bit of perspective. And I’m going to presume that as I continue to age, I will continue to gain more perspective. It often feels like it’s too late. It often feels like that because we’re comparing ourselves to where someone else is now. We’re comparing ourselves to someone or several people who may be started earlier or had the opportunity to start earlier or had some advantage that we did not have when we were that age or some advantage that we did not have until very recently or some advantage that we might never have at all.
You know what I’m going to say about comparing yourself to other writers? That we’re all on our own journey, that we’re all running our own race and that the finish line, if there even is a finish line, which spoiler there is not, is a different place for each and every one of us. We’re that unique. Everything is relative. Especially time.
The other day I found myself comparing to a lot of audio drama creators. Many of whom are 19, 20, 21 years old. And I sigh and I say, “Oh my gosh, do you know how far along I would be in my journey if I had started at the age of 19 or 20 or 21.” And then I fall into this place where I begin to regret and I begin to mourn this perceived lost time. And then all I can focus on is how much I have lost.
But the funny thing is I haven’t actually lost anything. When I was 19, 20, 21 years old, I was on my own creative journey. I was working for a software company and then I was working for a marketing firm and I didn’t like it, but I was exactly where I needed to be in order to become the creator that I needed to be. Does that make sense?
I didn’t actually lose anything I had ever possessed. I was mourning something that I had never had. And you can say, “Oh, well, maybe you were mourning the opportunity. Looking at all the roads not taken, looking at all the opportunities, not seized.” We have the same opportunities today and probably even more than we did a decade ago or two decades ago.
And we will continue to have those same opportunities. The possibility never dies. The possibilities never go away. There is always a possibility to start something. There’s always the possibility to create something. Life hasn’t passed you by. If you are listening right now, the chances are very good that you are alive. And if you are alive, you have possibility. You have everything you need to write. You have everything you need to create your art.
So I’ve been the 30 something looking back on my “wasted twenties.” But for that extra dose of perspective that I talked about, I’ve also been the young creator. Some of my closest friends in podcasting are much older than I am. In their fifties and beyond. And they look at me and they say, “Oh, if only I had started back in my thirties.” I think that no matter what age we begin, we always think, “Oh, I could have begun earlier. I’ll never catch up.”
Here’s the secret. You don’t need to catch up. You don’t need to mourn a past that never happened. Wherever you are, however old you are, however much education you’ve had, whatever opportunities you’ve had, the possibility is yours. You can pick up that pen. You can pick up that laptop. You can dictate into your phone. You can write.
There’s a saying that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but we can’t go back in time. So the second best time to plant a tree is now. What tree do you need to plant? And where are you? If you’re still dreaming about a past that never existed, maybe it’s time to shift your gaze, not even toward the future, but to now.
There’s a really beautiful thing about the present moment. And that is that, now the present moment is the only time that really exists. It’s the only time that is actually ever real for us. The past is a memory and the future is a dream. And we have no agency in those far away times. The only time when we can act is right now. And yes, I realize I am dropping the name of my podcast into this episode. There’s a reason that I called it Write Now. Now is perfect. Now is the only time that’s real. Now is the eternity of possibility.
It is natural for us to look back on the past with a little bit of wistfulness and regret and maybe some rose colored glasses. But most of the time, what we need to do, if you are feeling some sort of regret that’s tying you to the past is to forgive yourself. Any mistakes you may have made, any choices that you made that in hindsight, weren’t amazing. You have to forgive yourself, forgive your past self and move forward.
Let those regrets go. They don’t need to belong to you anymore. They don’t need to weigh you down. You don’t need to carry around that heavy burden of what could have been or what should have been. The only thing you need to do now is move forward. I know that’s a lot easier said than done, and sometimes it helps to reframe the way in which we’re thinking about it.
So for me, I need to tell myself, “Okay, yes, you’ve had some regrets, but now is your chance to the regret cycle.” This is the time when you can move forward and act so that you don’t create even more future regrets for your future self.
What is a regret that you will have on your death bed that you could vary, maybe not easily, but you could manage to start now. What is a regret that you’ll have in five or even two years that you can prevent by taking action now? How can you prevent your future self from feeling as though you have lost time?
Here’s another thing that often helps me. And I’m not always receptive to this idea, especially when I’m feeling extra angry or resentful with myself. More accurately, this is something that other people tell me very often that I know is true. And that is, I am right where I need to be.
Right now, you are exactly where your journey has taken you and you can’t change that. But what you can do is honor where you’ve been. Realize that you’ve gotten to this place where you are because of your experience. And you needed that experience to get where you are. It’s very likely that you are not in a place however many years ago to start.
I know I wasn’t. I needed to write several terrible novels. I needed to learn my craft. I needed to learn how to market. I needed to learn how to network. I needed to learn how to build lasting relationships within a creative community. I needed to figure out how to belong to a community, how to create community. I launched a successful show in 2017 because I had spent the previous oof, more than a decade, preparing myself to get there.
The truth is I did not know how to write a good story back in 2004. I didn’t know how to write a good story when I was 17 or 18 or 22. And even if I did, I didn’t know how to market it. I didn’t know how to help it find success. I didn’t know what I know now. I didn’t have all of the equipment I needed to be successful. And it’s only now that I’m coming to terms with that. It’s only now that I’m realizing that.
I needed to write some terrible unfinished novels and let them sit in a drawer while I stood in a corporate cubicle and learned, and I still have a lot more learning to do. When I’m 80, I imagine I’m going to look back at myself and how I was at 35 or 40 and say, “Oh, Oh, she was just starting. She was just starting to learn. She was just starting to master her craft.”
I know that perspective is important, but I also understand that dealing with where we are right now can be extremely frustrating. I realized that there is a frustration and a pressure to be exactly where you want to be right now. To be a good writer, to be a best selling writer, to be a celebrated creator, to be someone who gets invited to speak on panels, at conferences. And we can’t get there until we get there, but we can take steps today.
So if you’re feeling like you’re too old, or it’s too late to start, or you’ve missed your chance or that everyone else is so much younger and has so many better ideas than you do. Stop it. And I say that with love. Stop it. You’re not too old. It’s not too late. You haven’t missed anything. At least not anything important. If you’ve ever been a Forbes 30 Under 30 congrats, but it’s not important. It seems like it is. And it feels like it is, but it’s just vanity.
Now are these the words of someone who is better, that they never became a 30 under 30? Maybe. But speaking about these awards, this recognition in this way helps me to forgive myself and helps me to dismiss that regret to let it go and to move forward with what is actually important for me to create.
There are so many writers who are in advanced years, who are publishing novels now in their eighties and nineties, but there are also… And this is a special focus. There are also so many successful and well-known writers who did not start writing until a little bit later in life.
For instance, did you know Mark Twain? We think of as this huge person in American literature. Do you know how old Mark Twain was when he published his first book? Mark Twain published An Innocent Abroad, his first novel, when he was 41. Being around that age myself, I know that some of you are thinking, “Wow, that’s so young.” And some of you are thinking, “Wow, that’s incredibly ancient.” Again, it’s all perspective. Toni Morrison published her first book The Bluest Eye at the age of 40. J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit, his first book, at 45.
Laura Ingalls Wilder. The author of The Little House on the Prairie books did not start writing until she was 64 years old. That’s when she started. Anna Sewell who wrote Black Beauty, which was one of my favorite books growing up. She didn’t begin writing until she was 51 years old and she didn’t publish her first book until she was 57.
Frank McCourt, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Angela’s Ashes. He was 66 when he published his first book. Some of you even may remember a coffee break episode, which was a interview spinoff of the Write Now Podcast that I did years ago. I interviewed an author named Jay Greenfield, an 84-year-old man who had just published his very first novel and was so excited to continue writing novels.
There is no early. There is no late. There is no too old. There is no too young. Those are comparative terms and they don’t speak to the reality of ourselves. They don’t honor the journey that we are on.
For us as writers, it’s not possible to go back in time and plant a tree 20 years ago, but it is possible for us to plant that tree right now. So what about you? Do you find yourself giving yourself labels like too old, too young, too late, past due. Do you find yourself giving comparative labels that don’t matter to yourself? Do you feel like you’ve missed out? Do you feel like you’re too late? Do you feel like you’ll never catch up?
I would love to hear your experience. I would love to hear your story. I would love to know how you deal with feelings like these. And while I can’t respond to every email that I receive, I do read and respond to every single comment that’s left out on my website.
So please feel free to leave me a comment on my website under the show notes for today’s episode, this is episode number 117, it’s called, It’s Not Too Late. And you can find my website out at sarahwerner.com. That’s S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-R.com. Just scroll to the bottom of the show notes for today’s episode and you’ll see a comment box where you can type in your thoughts and hit submit. And I will read those… Actually, I’m pretty good at reading comments. I usually read them the day that they’re written.
So yeah. So some of your comments, I will respond to you and we can have a really lovely discussion there. I would love to hear your thoughts.
You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram and all of those things at Sarah Rhea Werner. That’s S-A-R-A-H R-H-E-A W-E-R-N-E-R. I’m also on Facebook, but I’m not great at checking Facebook. So if you want to reach out to me via social media, Twitter is probably the best.
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You can do that in a couple of different ways. You can go over to patreon.com. That’s P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/Sarahrheawerner. Or you can go to the show notes for today’s episode and in the show notes, you’ll see a link that says help support this podcast. You can just click that link, it will take you right out to Patreon. And I will be very appreciative.
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And with that, this has been episode 117 of the Write Now Podcast. The podcast that helps all writers, aspiring professional and otherwise, to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and write.
I’m Sarah Werner and it’s not too late for any of us.
I was inspired and motivated by your blogs and podcasts to write a book starting in February 2021 at the age of 68 years old. My first book The Joy of cycling in Putrajaya was published and launched on 26th March 2022. Thank you very much.
Wow. Adib, thank you so much for sharing this. I am inspired and motivated in turn by you. Congrats on your first book and hopefully there will be more to come! — Sarah
This was a great podcast, Sarah. You asked for novel length comments so… At the start you ask if your listeners have ever felt they are too old… I have never felt it, but sometimes I have thought it. 🙂 Funny thing is, as your anecdotes also indicate, this was more prominent for me when I was in my 20’s (I’m in my 50’s now). It’s when you’re young that it first hits you: you’re probably not going to be one of the prodigies that you read about, and from that you conclude: you’re doomed.
Since then I have had a very successful creative career. I should say “careers,” actually. I’ve been a game designer and studio head, CEO, then gave that up to become an illustrator. Now, like so many other people, I have written a novel and am looking to get it published. This is not something I ever dreamed of, nor do I identify myself as a “writer.” When I listen to podcasts like yours, or take in YouTube videos and such by other writers, or communicate with aspiring writers on social media, I see a certain consistency which to me is noteworthy. What I’ve noticed is (and this podcast displays it brilliantly), there is a LOT of motivational talk (which is great, imo) mixed in with the realities of the business and craft. I myself provide a ton of motivation for aspiring artists–many of whom are older. My main message is: don’t give up. I’m a firm believer that that is the ONLY reason people do not become successful in their creative endeavors. But what’s different is, with respect: artists (and musicians) know from the start that they need to learn the craft, they need to “get good at it,” whereas it seems with writing there is this deception among many, many people that anyone can do it straight away (or that it takes less learning and practice than other art forms).
Very few people can draw fluently, even after a lot of training. Schools don’t teach it, and our brains are not as naturally wired for it as for language. I draw fluently, and, believe me, it is an unusual experience once you get there. I just look at the paper and think about what I want to draw, and it appears. Just as we might sometimes have the experience, “Oh, did I just say that?” that’s how drawing is for me. Who drew that? I don’t know. I guess I just did. Drawing for me is now totally unconscious, but I can remember when it wasn’t. Drawing fluently does not mean you are Rembrandt, though–it just means you can communicate clearly with drawing, and that you don’t need to think about it while you do it. But all that is just the starting point. We are all this way with our language. We are inundated with language even before we are born, we express ourselves with it every minute of our lives. We even think in language. So we’re all fluent in our language–but this does not make us Shakespeare (oh, that’s right, you are not a fan 🙂 ).
In 2d art (painting, drawing) we also have this blessing / curse where it takes a viewer one tenth of a second to take in the picture you may have spent weeks working on. They IMMEDIATELY judge it, usually “rightly.” It’s well-executed but uninteresting. The character is unappealing. The draftmanwomanpersonmanship is off; the perspective looks wonky; the colors aren’t working, whatever. With a piece of writing it’s not so easy or immediate so, again, I think there is a misperception, a somewhat exaggerated sense of one’s capabilities. Think about it: literally anyone can sit down and type out a novel that will be coherent and make perfect sense. I can say, “Susie woke up one morning, the sun was shining on the water, and the blue jays were singing.” Boring, but clear. Not laughably bad. But how many people can DRAW that sentence without being somewhere between laughably bad and no one has any idea what it is supposed to be? Because that level of writing is trivially easy, there is a big deception that writing a story someone else will want to read is similarly within easy grasp. We don’t have this so much in art and music because the learning is so difficult and unintuitive. We learn how to make the instrument work at the same time we are learning to express ourselves with it, to create with it.
In this podcast you are freely mixing concepts of “you are never too old” (always true) with “when I was young I didn’t really know how to write yet” (also true for most artists, whatever the medium). What’s noteworthy to me is how much aspiring writers, specifically, need to be TOLD this. Imagine if someone thought they could pick up a violin and just start playing! I say this because I think it would save writers a lot of shock and heartache. I constantly hear the stories about rejection and perseverance, which present themselves as merely about faith and stick-to-itiveness, when really what’s happening is the person is learning the craft, learning that they didn’t know what they thought they knew. Learning that enjoying reading is not the same as being able to create that thing you just enjoyed. So the good news / bad news is: you probably can’t simply write one thing and it’ll be great, and, just because your first ten (or one hundred) things got rejected doesn’t mean you will never be a writer.
Thank you so much for this inspiring episode. It is extremely helpful and insightful. I am going to share it with my many friends who are artists.
Thank you, Stephanie, for listening and for sharing! 🙂 — Sarah
Hi, Sarah! What a fabulous topic! Thank you! Now here’s something… I’ve been writing since I was a teenager. I am sixty-five—and I’m not published. Do I intend to publish? Yes, I do. I’ve taken a thousand detours… family called. My parents were aging. Helping them required flights and rental cars. I raised four crazy-busy kids. I coached three youth soccer teams all at the same time. (I do not recommend—but boy oh boy was I physically fit back then!) We moved many times, twice internationally. I have traveled the world. I have been married 44 years! I have enjoyed life. I have written four practice novels—great ideas but… I have one novel that I’ve been writing, rewriting, revising, and rewriting again, and daydreaming about for—get this—twenty-six years. (It’s the one!) Am I freaking out because I haven’t published? No. Will it be a bestseller? Who knows. I’ve studied novel writing. In fact, I’m a teacher with an English minor and I’m picky. I read five books at a time. I study them. I LOVE plotting. I LOVE writing. I LOVE revising. I LOVE learning. Would I have enjoyed being published when I was younger? I don’t think so. Am I ready now? I’m getting there. It’s never ever too late. Will I regret my journey? Not one bit. I have fabulous experiences to draw from. And I am serious about writing. I write or revise or brainstorm every single day, and I WILL publish! Again, thanks for a great podcast episode, Sarah!
Nancy! Thank you for sharing your story. I love how passionate and excited you are — and I’m right there with you! YOU WILL PUBLISH!!! Cheering you on!!! — Sarah
This episode made me realize I use the phrase “washed up” to describe myself as an artist. But how crazy is it to think of that as a bad thing, when there are beautiful things like beach glass and seashells and driftwood?
Oh my gosh, Lindsay… I know you and your writing and you are anything but “washed up”. You are vibrant and energetic and truly exceptional. But like you said… maybe it’s not a bad thing if you think of it in the context of sea glass. Either way, please keep creating. We need your voice. <3 -Sarah
Sarah – I swear sometimes you’re peering into my life with your podcast topics. I’ve mentioned this before, but I just changed jobs, finally getting to do something I’ve been wanting to do for sometime now. I left a company I had worked for for 11 years and at times, I felt like I had wasted too much time there hoping things would be better for me. I now realized that because of that 11 years, I got the job that I really wanted and it wouldn’t have been possible without the experience I gained. And a side effect – I am extremely grateful for this opportunity. I feel like I’ve arrived at an oasis after wandering the desert for a decade.
It really is never too late to pursue your dreams – I’m living proof.
Mike, thank you so much as always for commenting — and I’m so happy you’re in that oasis. 🙂 Happy writing — I’m so grateful right along with you that you continue to chase your dreams. — Sarah
When I was young, I loved to read, then in my teen years I stopped. I hated writing and the English subject in school. My penmanship was dismal and Typing class in the 1970s was for girls. English seemed so arbitrary, nothing like the Science, Math, and History I loved.
In my late twenties, I rediscovered my love of reading, so I began reading Sci-Fi and Fantasy voraciously. By the time I entered my 40s I’d grown tired of some of the well-worn tropes. I began thinking I want to write. Thankfully, by then computers had arrived, and I taught myself how to type. A visual hunt and peck style I still use.
In my early 50s, I discovered Amazon & Kickstarter and realized I didn’t need to worry about traditional publishing I could share my stories with an intimate group of friends and curious onlookers. So, I wrote my first novel based on a story that I had been thinking about for years, then I wrote two more. Putting each of them on Kickstarter, making my modest goal each time and growing my audience.
I’m now 61 and the guy who hated to write is finishing up his 5th novel, as well as a children’s book, a podcast, and four novelettes. I have learned so much I might even consider submitting it to an agent since Kickstarter has changed so much. Either way, now I’m happy writing what I like, and looking forward to telling stories to my friends everywhere for years to come.
Drayton, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for sharing your experience and your insights. Looking forward to all of your amazing creative work to come! 🙂 – Sarah
Hello Sarah,
I am a fairly new listener to your Podcast. I loved loved loved this episode. I have wanted to write all my life. I’ve been starting “novels” since Jr. High School. I wrote about 1/3 of a coming of age story when I was in my early twenties and “plotted” an Epic Fantasy – but I never made anything happen. I joined NaNoWriMo SO many times never to win. Then in 2014 I took a sabbatical from my IT career and did photography full time. During that year I did NaNoWriMo and this time I was able to win. I wrote 65,000 words of a novel – and only got to ch. 13 of a YA Fantasy. For years I’ve tried to find the secret sauce as us writer’s say but could never find it. Life would always find a way to derail me. Then something truly unique happened – A Pandemic. When I was forced to work from home in April of 2020, I stumbled across a writing book that took all of the many classes and years of conferences and put them into their proper place. I outlined my YA Fantasy – threw out all but 13,000 words and started again. I am happy to say that in December of 2020 I finished my first book the day after my 49th birthday. I couldn’t be happier. I used to think – well I’ve wasted too many years, I’m too old, I should have figured it out sooner. But you know what? Of course you do, because it was the topic of episdoe 117. It DOESN’T matter. I am SO thrilled to have finished a complete novel, and I am looking forward to the publishing journey as I plot my next novel.Thanks for your podcast – my drive to work sucks less one day a week.
Best,
Aaron Betts Author
Aaron, thank you so much for listening, and for sharing your thoughts and experience with us! CONGRATS on finishing your first book… we are thrilled along with you!!! Please continue writing and doing what you love. I’m cheering for you! 🙂 — Sarah
Great episode, definitely something I’ve struggled with all my writing life, especially once I started passing Stephen King’s age throughout his career.
I do feel it gets easier each decade, and now in my 40s I think I’ve reached a good appeasement about it.
Also I know I couldn’t have written Ostium 10 or 20 years ago, I didn’t have the knowledge and experience I do now to write it.
Also Paul Bae of Big Loop and Black Tapes likes to share that he didn’t reach success until he was 50!
Thank you, Alex, for sharing all of this. And Paul Bae is and always will be a huge inspiration!!! -Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Thank you so much for this wonderful podcast! I play it quite often in the mornings before I get typing away at work because I find your work inspiring and absolutely real. You tug at those really deep insecurities that writers have and really tease those threads apart. So, I always wanted to be a writer. My first shot at it was at 18 when I wrote a NaNo novel and it was ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. So bad that in my twenties after an attempt at editing, I burned it in my grandfathers wood stove in the shed. I threw the whole printed manuscript in and afterwards realized that it was such a dense cluster of papers that it took two hours to burn. So I sat on a wood log, the smell of spruce and pine around me and read a actually good book while my own manuscript was syphoned up the chimney.
It was discouraging. Years of poverty, homelessness, contending with mental illness and coming to terms with being a trans woman gave me structural disadvantages that would leave me bitter through my early twenties. I wanted to be a writer, but I was never given the opportunity to just write. To much was happening and life was a absolute tornado. After getting my shit together and going to undergrad I eventually got good at term papers which lead to getting good at academic writing which reignited my interest in writing in general. I didn’t take it seriously until my MA where I started writing as a staff writer for my student newspaper. I wrote life style articles and had a ton of fun with it. I tried my hand at journalism, but was bored by the objective style of writing (and had some moral contentions with journalists pretending to not have bias when writing).
That got me practicing and it was later successful. I’m now a journalist, a phd candadite, and I’m working on my first non-fiction book contract (which has been an absolute challenge). But still, I find myself despairing about not being able to write earlier. Namely, I want to write fiction. I want to get as far away from academic writing as possible and work on fiction. And I’m only in the last two years learning to write character driven stories.
SO, all that to say that this despair hits me often and that’s why this particular episode really struck a nerve for me. I’m going to try to foster that optimism to keep honing my craft and only look into my past to see the journey I’ve taken to get here. Not to despair over lost or wasted or stolen time.
Thanks Sarah and sorry for the long comment.
Thank you for sharing your story, Abigail — and no apologies for the long comment! I truly appreciate it. And WOW… you’ve been through so much. Congrats on the PhD candidacy and the book contract! And please always remember… you’ve done so much amazing work already, and it’s not too late to make that leap into writing fiction. I believe in you. <3 -Sarah
i was totally the kid who looked at those young author books, or kids doing other amazing things, and felt pretty jealous and inadequate. right there with you!
Solidarity!!! XD
Ahhh! So many parallels in your podcasts! I won the Young Author’s Contest in 5th and it felt like a Pulitzer to the 10-year-old me. Here I am decades later, with 4 indie books under my belt and waiting with nervous anticipation for a revise and resubmit from an agent. It’s never too late in this field to get professionally published, which is very good news. I still feel as excited to find out the results as I was in 5th grade…
YES!!! Happy writing! – Sarah
Wow. I didn’t realize all those amazing authors were so “old” when they first published!! 😳
Soon-to-be-43-year-old-me is very inspired now. I started writing a novel 11 years ago and got 85 pages in.
Then came baby boy #3.
That was the end of that.
But I’ve felt the itch. I’ve ghostwritten a book, so why can’t I write my own dang book?
This is my year. (Thank you fit episode #32 btw.)
Glad I found this podcast. Thank you!! 😁💕
Thank you for sharing your own experience, Suzanne! It’s never too late and THIS IS YOUR YEAR!!! 🙂 — Sarah