I’m writing this post because I turned 65 last week and am so far embracing it. And although it’s no longer Women’s History Month, given last month’s post about perseverance in publishing, I found it uncanny that I stumbled on another pertinent Writer’s Digest online article by yet another (oh happy day) female author, Amy Pence.
“Silver Linings Playbook: Publishing Past a Certain Age” addressed how being a “late bloomer” can be a plus when it comes to writing and publishing. “The late blooming writers I know have found that to embrace age is to welcome the career that has finally come home,” said Pence. “Yet, as mature authors, we are on our own unique timeline.”
In these trying times, where sexism and ageism—addressed in my Other Worldly novels including the current work in progress, Alien Origins—it’s refreshing to receive validation that I’m not alone, and I’m not blowing in the wind by still hoping to somehow traditionally publish a series that’s almost reached its zenith. That, and I plan to keep on writing fiction.
Pence recommended that senior scribers should embrace their pace. “If nothing else, age teaches us to embrace the process,” because we are writing from a “deep well of experience,” and therefore need to “trust our story.”
She discussed the process of another female author, Laura Dickerman, a retired English teacher who found publishing success later in life. Dickerman, who wrote her debut novel, Hot Desk, at age 60 and published it at 62, actually saw her age as a selling point: “I wanted to lean into the idea that it’s exciting because I’m old.”
Boy howdy did that make me feel like I, and especially my over-55 protagonist Rowan Layne (who turns 60 in book six, Altogether Alien), have something in common with Dickerman. Plus, she set out to write in one genre—rom-com—and found herself creating a duel timeline that focused on women in their mid-60s.
Like my OW novels, this reinforces that women of a certain age can be main characters and have a romantic (sex and love) life, or in the case of Rowan Layne, two or three or eight loves bounding across multiple genres, not to mention species. As Dickerman said, “Being my age was essential to writing this,” to “expanding the book’s reach.”
Can I ever relate to that, along with Pence advising, “Stay true to who you’ve become.” Being older means “There’s a deeper well to draw from…more clarity about what matters. You’re less concerned with proving something and more committed to telling the truth.”
As Rowan Layne would say, ya think?
Perhaps the most inspiring excerpt came from Laura Dickerman: “Age has given me power and wisdom, and I don’t mind taking up space. I’m comfortable speaking my mind, and I’m more interest than ever about what women have to say.”
It doesn’t get much better than that as I writer and, as a reader, I can’t wait to delve into Hot Desk, described as contemporary, funny, sexy, and moving.
Pence also advised us to value our readers, and to pave the way. Excellent points, but the one thing I couldn’t yet relate to, though it did provide hope, was her noting that, “My fiction friends and I agree that bias or ageism has been minimal; instead we’ve found that publishers and publicists find mature writers inspirational.”
The daunting obstacle, in my estimation, is that many literary agents tend to on the youthful side of life, and therefore indelibly youth-oriented with less focus on life experience. And you can’t reach a traditional publisher with your “inspiration” without having an agent.
But I’m still going to try. Because if cacti in my hardscrabble soil (per accompanying photo) can bloom and flourish with very little precipitation so far this spring, and little encouragement from me because I had no inkling they had it in them, this not-so-spring-chicken might just be able to blossom within the traditional publishing industry when the time is right.
After all, I do trust my otherworldly story, have most definitely drawn from my own experiences to write it, and have finally been willing to embrace a pace that’s not a publishing rat race. And of course Rowan Layne will always speak her mind. She’s even been described as a bit prickly. Good thing cactus is also very resilient.