Need some reassurance I am not too old...

[ArcticFox]

I am not sure if this is the proper place to put this, but here it goes. I am 32 almost 33. I guess I am feeling a little like if I were serious about writing I would have done more by now. I have been writing little things off and on. I have tried to start my book three times. I read a ton fiction, non-fiction, and articles on the writing business. I have been writing since I was a kid, but have yet to finish a book, just few short stories. I received some good comments on them from a few magazine editors.

I just...it isn't too late right? It's not too late to find the method that works for me? To find that story that I want to tell?

Logically, I know it isn't too late. I know there must be authors out there who started out when they were older than me. What I am asking to read some concrete examples of people my age and older who have done it, so I can look at them and take heart! I know it really shouldn't matter in the end. If I want to write I will, but this isn't my head talking. It's my heart.

Thanks guys, you are awesome.

 

[Perks]

I'm 42. My debut novel comes out just before I turn 43.

I started writing with a mind toward publication when I was 31. So taking a three year break to procreate, move to another city, and build a house, it took... well... that long.

 

[SomethingOrOther]

32 is, like, pre-adolescent, by fiction-writing standards.

Here's a great post on finishing stuff.

 

[Calla Lily]

(I mean this in the nicest sense: You're a baby. )

Agented at 48.
First book on shelf at 49.

You're not too old. You do, however, need to finish a book. There are a lot of resources here to help with motivation, plot, mechanics, etc. etc. Good luck!

 

[CrastersBabies]

41 here. Still working on debut novel. Erase the age barrier in your mind. It's just a number. I would say the only way it might hinder you is if you are too young and it shows in your writing. Otherwise, pfft.

I hope to write into my 90s. Not even halfway there.

 

[lorna_w]

Have I got the article for you!

Also, one of the best first/only short novels ever written, period, was A River Runs Through It. Maclean was 70.

Harriet Doerr got her first novel published at 74. Stones for Ibarra went on to win the National Book Award

 

[LJD]

When I saw the thread title, I thought you were gonna be twice as old as you are.

Frank McCourt was in his mid-sixties when Angela's Ashes came out.

 

[C. K. Casner]

I'm 40 and still plugging away. I write for my my own enjoyment and to keep my sanity raising two teens

 

[Allen R. Brady]

I just sold my first novel at 46. I wanted to be a writer when I was in my 20s, but had absolutely no idea what to write about. These days, I'm overflowing with ideas.

On the other hand, you've only got seven or eight good decades left. Better get cracking!

 

[ArcticFox]

Such fast responses! Thank you! This what I needed. The articles! Yes, I need to finish! Thank you for the support guys! I knew in my head I am still young, I guess I was just feeling a little like I had wasted time. Now is the time though! Thank you! Yes, I will finish. I think my problem has been I have been trying to just wing it and I have just come to realize I think that I am a plotter. I am going to try plotting out the book from start to finish and see if that helps! I have a feeling it will. Thanks again for the articles and advice.

 

[KTC]

I am not sure if this is the proper place to put this, but here it goes. I am 32 almost 33. I guess I am feeling a little like if I were serious about writing I would have done more by now. I have been writing little things off and on. I have tried to start my book three times. I read a ton fiction, non-fiction, and articles on the writing business. I have been writing since I was a kid, but have yet to finish a book, just few short stories. I received some good comments on them from a few magazine editors.

I just...it isn't too late right? It's not too late to find the method that works for me? To find that story that I want to tell?

Logically, I know it isn't too late. I know there must be authors out there who started out when they were older than me. What I am asking to read some concrete examples of people my age and older who have done it, so I can look at them and take heart! I know it really shouldn't matter in the end. If I want to write I will, but this isn't my head talking. It's my heart.

Thanks guys, you are awesome.

I'm a high school drop-out. I'm 45...almost 46. My debut novel came out last July. My second novel comes out this July. I was busy being a mad wreck for the first 35 or so years of my life. It's never too late. I've lived with PTSD for 34 or those years...skating forever on the edge of the abyss. You're young. Young enough to explore your options.

I've been quoting Ray Bradbury a lot these past two days. I do it again here:

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down. ~ Ray Bradbury

Jump into writing.

​

 

[KellyAssauer]

There's a theory that suggests

that you can't really write until you've lived...
and until you've figured out what's important about living.

It's just a theory...

 

[justbishop]

Another 33 year old here! I am just going to pretend that all of the responses posted were directed at me

And it's also nice to see that I'm not the only HS dropout writing. The more I talk to other writers, the more I feel like the only kid on the playground without a degree in English Lit or something.

 

[kenthepen]

I wrote drunken poetry in the seventies, songs in the eighties and early nineties, screenplays off and on for over ten years, and then, after 50, wrote my first novel.
(I thought it was going to be a long short story)

Sure, I hope to make some money from writing, eventually, but I write because I have to write.

I'm finishing up my second novel now.

I never had any desire to make a living writing what someone else wants me to write; I write what I want to write. It's very gratifying.

Good luck to you, and just figure out what you need to do for YOU!

 

[Beachgirl]

My debut book is set for publication on August 5th - three days after my 46th birthday.

Not a bad B-Day present, eh?

 

[ArcticFox]

So. Many. Stories. I love them and I love you guys.

 

[ohthatmomagain]

I'm 31... I'm glad you made this thread

 

[quicklime]

Frank McCourt was in or past his 60s, wasn't he?

I'm planning to sell by 40, 38 now.

 

[Bookewyrme]

Thanks for this thread. I have this doubt periodically too, especially since the birth of my son. Of course, now I feel a bit silly about it, since I'm only 27.

So. I guess I better quit wasting time and write, so I don't feel like I'm falling behind anymore.

 

[NeuroFizz]

When I was 49, if you would have suggested that I would write fiction, I would have suggested that you need a mental evaluation. I never liked English or Creative Writing courses, and I never felt the desire to be creative in that way. A year later, I responded to an intellectual challenge from a friend and it started something in me that I still can't explain. So I was the most unlikely of candidates but jumped in as a know-nothing newbie at 50. I consider myself a developing writer with some modest success from whom the best is yet to come.

It's funny that a DJ on the local radio station had yet another inane call-in survey today--if you could choose, which would you prefer...an average-looking person of great intelligence or a smoking-hot person of below average intelligence. You can guess which was winning (it was a station with a college crowd as the target audience). Aging is not always kind in terms of physical appearane, but intelligence (and intellectual creativity) can and does continue to gain luster and beauty with each passing year.

 

[Filigree]

I'm 46. I wrote my first novel when I was 22, and it sucked. I waffled around with small article and short story sales for another decade, then gave up fiction writing completely for nearly a decade. I didn't start again until 2009. In 2011, I sold two short stories. Last month I sold my first novel.

Sure I could have been published sooner if I'd been more diligent. But I feel like I needed the time to mature. I know of people who've sold their first works, art and writing, in their 50's, 60's, even into their 90's.

It can take years to find your voice. In your early 30's, you should have plenty of time.

 

[Soccer Mom]

I don't usually flog my blog, but I posted about this very thing last tuesday. Some famous writers:

There's more. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote her "Little House" books when she was in her 60's. Frank McCourt won the Pulizer for his first novel at the age of 66. Richard Adams wrote Watership Down, my favoritest novel ever, when he was 51. Raymond Chandler published his first short story at 45. Wallace Stevens wasn't published until his late 30's and his best stuff came in his 50's. Charles Bukowski published his first novel at 49.

Heck, Julia Childs didn't even go to cooking school until she was in her mid-thirties and got her first TV show when she was 50. It ain't over 'til it's over.

 

[Scribhneoir]

The great thing about writing is that it's never too late to start and you can do it until you die.

A number of years ago, a friend of mine worked himself into a deep blue funk because he would never be an Olympic athlete. He was 25 at the time and completely distraught by this realization. Problem was, until that day he'd never wanted to be an Olympic athlete. He had little interest in sports in general. It's just that one day it suddenly dawned on him that certain options of what to do with his life were no longer available to him.

Luckily, unlike an Olympic gymnast, a writer doesn't have to decide the course of his life at the age of four and face being over the hill by 20. At 32-going-on-33, you've got plenty of time -- time to learn and grow and excel.

 

[dangerousbill]

I am not sure if this is the proper place to put this, but here it goes. I am 32 almost 33. I guess I am feeling a little like if I were serious about writing I would have done more by now.

I'm 69. I didn't start to write until I was 54 but got serious about it just eight years ago. I have two novels published out of a total of nine attempts.

Make sure that you really want to write. Lots of people want to be writers, but not as many want to write. If you're serious, age will never be a factor. If you keep finding reasons not to write, that should tell you something.

 

[blacbird]

I'm 66, and have managed to get published two short stories, both of which were requested after exposures on writers' sites (one on this one). My track record for acceptance from standard submission procedures is an infinitely perfect zero.

And, yes, I do think I'm too old now to interest any traditional publisher.

caw