"Why?" I said, befuddled. "I mean, this place makes Kevlar parts. It's not exactly exciting stuff." "They've got a great pension plan," he said. "You're twenty-five!" I said. He went on to say he felt old, that time had passed him by. And here I was, in my midthirties and still earning a living in ways other than writing. When I graduated from college, I told a friend, "If I don't make it as a writer by thirty, I'm quitting." Big surprise -- I didn't make it big by thirty. I was writing fiction and poetry, and while I had been published in small journals, I still worked as an office manager, too. It took another seven years to be writing full-time. It troubles me when people say it's too late to pursue their dreams -- whatever their dreams are. I have a cousin in Pennsylvania who loves to cook. During one of my last visits east to visit my mother in a nursing home where she spent the final year of her life, I stayed with him and his family. On Sunday morning, when I returned from mass, he had all the makings out for just about any type of breakfast. White eggs were lined up oil the counter, along with a skillet, a plate of butter, bread for toasting, a box of Bisquick, potatoes, spices, nested mixing bowls, a spatula, and a carton of milk. As I nibbled home fries and French toast, I said, "You so love to cook. Why don't you open a restaurant?" My cousin's striking blue-green eyes lit up, and then grew dim. A scowl shadowed his face. "I'm going back to work. They called me back." He had been laid off for six months and during that time he'd begun to entertain thoughts of doing something he enjoyed. Apparently he was ready to let one phone call end that dream. "Wouldn't you love a restaurant?" I said. "Of course. But it's too late for that," he said. End of conversation. Later on, his mother-in-law stopped by. The topic of my cousin's cooking came tip. I repeated what I had said earlier about what a great cook he was and how he should open a restaurant. "Oh, no!" she said. "He's going to be fifty. That's too old for a new start." I was floored. Too late? Colonel Sanders was sixty-five when he founded KFC! Likewise, so very many novelists published their first book in their forties and later. Diane Leslie, author of Fleur de Leigh's Life of Crime and Fleur de Leigh in Exile, says she published her first novel when she was closer to fifty than forty. "The reasons for Fleur's late bloom (and mine)," says Leslie, "probably had to do with my having enough emotional maturity to give up caring whether or not I was competing with my writer mother. And maybe it just took forever to learn how to write. I sincerely believe that getting published later in life is best. I've appreciated it. The younger writers I know who did well took their success for granted and had a hard time when their careers began to fizzle." Mary Rakow published her first novel, The Memory Room, in her early fifties. Nuala O'Faolain's bestselling first memoir, Are You Somebody? was published when she was in her midfifties. She had never expected it to be published much less be so well received. "It was at that lowest point of my life," says O'Faolain, "the darkness before the dawn, that I took the opportunity to look back on my life and write about it, in a spirit of melancholy and of farewell, and then it turned out there are thousands of people out there who understood what I was writing about." In 1962, at the age of sixty-nine, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring and received many awards and accolades for her writing until her death two years later. Harriet Doerr launched her literary career at age seventy-three with the National Book Award-winning novel Stones for Ibarra, and she continued writing for almost twenty more years. It's not all that unusual to begin writing later in life. In fact, awards and fellowships are available specifically for older women. The Ragdale Foundation, for instance, sponsors the Frances Shaw Writing Fellowship, open to women writers who begin writing seriously after age fifty-five. Literary agent Betsy Lerner, author of The Forest for the Trees, says, "I just sold a first book by a woman who is sixty, and this year I sold a first book by a man in his midfifties. They'd been writing their whole lives. Sure, people love the juicy young hot thing. That said, they also really love terrific writing. No matter what age you are, if you have produced something of real beauty, of real worth, of real interest, you will get it published." There may be more to creative visualization, which Shakti Gawain writes about in her book by that name, than we know. Think about what you wish for, and imagine how you'd like your life to be in six months, a year, five years from now. Your age doesn't matter here, especially if you think that you should already have realized your dream or that you're too young to see your dream come true for a good many years. Focus on the dream itself. Envision your future as you'd like to live it. Have you secretly wanted to transform a guest room or the corner of your garage into a writing studio? Write about that, down to the type of flooring it will have and the type of chair you'll sit on. Now set your timer for fifteen minutes and write down your ideal scenario. Be specific: How will you spend your days? Do you see yourself writing full-time? What will you write -- stories, articles, essays, poems, novels? Don't skimp on details. Fate may just need to know the color of the walls or the make of the car you'll drive or the design of the desk where you'll sit if it's going to fulfill your dreams.
It's important to see yourself in the sort of life you want. If you can't see yourself as a writer, how will you ever find your way there?
Excerpted with permission from Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman's Guide to Igniting the Writer Within (Harcourt Trade Publishers, October 2004). The writer: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett lives in Corona del Mar, California, with her jazz and blues musician husband, her 10-year-old son, two tanks of fish and one cat. Pen On Fire: A Busy Woman's Guide for Igniting the Writer Within is her first book. Previously, she has published fiction, poetry, articles and essays in such journals as the Los Angeles Times, The Writer, Poets & Writers, Sunset, Westways, Orange Coast Magazine and the San Jose Mercury News . Her work has been anthologized in two books: The ASJA Guide to Freelance Writing (St. Martin's Press, 2003) and Conversations with Clarence Major (University Press of Mississippi, 2002). She is host of Writers on Writing, a weekly radio show that airs on KUCI-FM (88.9) and at www.kuci.org and teaches creative writing at the University of California, Irvine Extension. About Pen on Fire: In her fifteen years of teaching, Barbara has found that the biggest stumbling block for aspiring writers (especially women) is not fear of the blank page but frustration with the lack of time. But anyone can find fifteen minutes, whether you're sitting in traffic, waiting at a child's soccer practice, or watching the coffee drip. She offers a practical guide for fitting serious writing into those stolen moments and advice from well-known authors who appear on her radio show. Q: What about books about writing — which do you favor (other than your own, of course)? A: Carolyn See's Making a Literary Life, Rita Mae Brown's Starting from Scratch, Flannery O'Conner's Mysteries and Manners, Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and Thunder and Lightning, Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, Dennis Palumbo's Writing from the Inside Out, Susan Woolridge's Poemcrazy. And of course Brenda Ueland's 1938 classic If You Want to Write. Q: What advice to you have for beginning writers? A: Other than not watching TV? Decide that writing is a priority and make time for it. If you're in love with someone, you make time for him or her, right? Likewise, you must make time for writing. Instead of going out to lunch, dinner, to the movies, or to a concert, write. So many Sundays when I was working on Starletta's Kitchen and Pen on Fire, I sat at my desk and kissed my husband and son goodbye as they walked happily out the door on their way to the beach or the park. I had no idea if my books would ever be published. I was writing because I had to, because I knew that if I didn't, they would never be finished. Well, as it turned out, one wasn't published (so far), and one was. Do I regret not going to the beach those days with my family? I must admit, I do a little. But we had many good, fun days back then, and I believe — I hope — that my working hard and getting a book published will also be good for my son — for all of us — in the long run. Often it's a matter of balance. While you should not sacrifice your family for your art, you need to get work done, too. It's your job to figure out how to best do that. Read more of this Q&A. |
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David Ulin admits to a fascination with seismicity. Penelope Moffet shares memories of Dorland Arts Colony. Wil Wheaton feels the love at his first reading. Kat Meads finds she is a California author afterall. Dayna Dunbar on the road from screenwriting to novels. Pamela Ribon on an unexpected outpouring for Oakland libraries. Gayle Brandeis on the dreaded author photo. Mark Lee tells us what it was like to ride with the Pulpwood Queens. Aimee Liu on the renewed interest in the international novel. | ||
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