In the last few months, it has really come home to me that life changes are needed. Like the universe is sending all these messages I can’t quite decipher. The computer has become almost incomprehensible. It’s been difficult communicating via email with my writing group and my editor. Writing a novel in the new Word is only a little easier. I am not as quick at learning updates as I once was…and that has led me to think, well, maybe it’s time to retire from writing.
I resist that idea even as I see signs that maybe it’s not such a terrible one. I love writing, but I do not love all the stuff around writing. Marketing is harder than ever and I don’t want to do it. I had several talks with writing friends Sarah and Gwen, who own a publishing company, about how to upgrade my marketing skills. That’s another blog post, but we finally figured out the best use of my limited funds might be a publicist. Another Sarah, also a writer, mentioned her publicist, too. So, maybe. Also I clearly need a few lessons from a tech guru. Other than my son, who, when my tech woman of many years retired, saved me from a bad decision and got me on a new path. But he’s busy raising his family. He doesn’t have time to teach his mom how to deal with the Microsoft.
Meanwhile, I have a book deadline in February that is wiping all else from the writing portion of my brain. I can’t do gurus or publicists just now. I have a book due and it’s in a new genre for me. Regency. I have probably read more in this genre than any other, but when I tried to write it, it was just crap. That was thirty or so years ago, so I am trying again. The parts that were hard thirty years ago come naturally to me now. The voice is effortless. I know the era, the mannerisms, the beliefs. All that has been a pleasure.
Plus I love the research and have built quite a Regency library section.
It’s everything outside of the writing that is giving me signals my time for publishing books may have come and gone without me quite noticing. Could that be true? I know so many writers my age and older. Everyone is doing well. I was doing great. I retired from teaching and was anxious to write all day every day. I found a publisher who was a good fit and a great editor. She even loves Regency! It felt like all my dreams were coming true. And then I hit a roadblock. Or several.
Maybe my time was just done. I could almost feel my writing dream dwindling away. What in the world was I going to do with my life? Would the blog have to go too? What?!
Then, a clue. I came upon this book review a new self-help release by a writer I’ve read in magazines, Arthur C. Brooks. From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life. It changed my mind if not my life. Yet. I have not finished the book! The basic premise is this: we each have two career curves in our lives. The first curve is more about learning and practicing your craft. The second curve is a bit different. It’s more using everything you’ve learned in your life in a new way, crystalizing your skills into something you can use.
Like, instead of writing symphonies, like Bach, whose son had overtaken him as the new classical music whiz, switch to writing everything you know about how to compose a baroque fugue. That’s an example from the book. So for me, instead of writing Regency romances, I could segue into writing how-to books. Hmmm. That might be fun. I’ve written in many forms: journalism, poetry, short stories, graduate thesis, memoir pieces, hundreds of book reviews, romance, mystery and historical novels. I wrote a non-fiction textbook. And thousands of blog posts.
This standstill I face is a specific problem with a general solution for people my age (68) and older can use to continue contributing to life on the planet. Crystalize your knowledge. How can you use it to benefit younger people? Do that.
While I think about how best to crystalize my own knowledge, I will continue to blog. And I do have a deadline and a book to finish. Actually, I have two books to finish. What will you do in 2024? If you’re young, keep getting better, keep learning. If you’re not so young and feeling stuck, read Brooks’s book.
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