Use This Mindset to Pursue Your Writing Dream in Midlife
I once heard someone say being in your fifties is like the back nine of an 18-hole golf course. I don’t like golf — not at all — so picturing my fifties as chasing a tiny white ball through sand traps almost brought on a midlife crisis. So I came up with my own analogy instead. For me, being in my fifties is a little like day four of a seven-day vacation. And that’s a good thing, because day four is often the best day of the week.
By day four, I’ve done the “must-sees” — the Coliseum in Rome, the Statue of Liberty in New York — so there’s more time to relax. I’ve been there long enough to know what I like: a favorite coffee shop, a boutique or two, the best route for a jog. The newness has worn off, but the magic is still there, and the pressure to make the trip “worth it” has eased.
Day four of a seven-day vacation is the best
Day four is hopeful, because it’s not too late to plan something significant, an excursion or a side trip. And it isn’t melancholy like day six, when the end is near and a little homesickness sets in. Thinking of my fifties as day four helped me find my voice as a fiction writer. It gave me the courage to push through to the end of the first draft of my first novel, and the courage to start the long process of revising.
I’ve done the must-dos — school, degree, job — and I keep doing the ones I genuinely want to do: marriage, children, soon a grandchild. A few years ago, after a hard one-on-one session with an editor that helped me realize it was time to put a 60,000-word manuscript in a drawer and start over, I thought maybe it was too late for me to pursue this novel-writing dream. I let myself cry, then reminded myself that you don’t throw in the towel on day four of a week-long vacation, even if the weather is crappy.
It’s never too late if you’re on the top side of the grass
The further along I get, the more I believe that old cliche: it’s never too late if you’re on the top side of the grass. That belief gives me the motivation to keep writing. It also gave me the courage to become an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach and pivot my freelance business toward working with people who want to write books and stories. I’ve never been more professionally satisfied. I get to spend my days in the world of words, books, ideas, creativity, journaling, and publishing. One of my superpowers is helping people figure out whether their book or story idea will work. If you’ve got an idea and want some feedback, let me help you.