I’ll be 56 this February. Wow.
I’m used to being the oldest one in the room. I hang out on a few Discord servers, and for some reason there are a lot of younger people on Discord. Maybe because it started out as a gaming platform? I’m not sure. It definitely reminds me of IRC from the 1990s, so I’m not sure why everyone from there didn’t end up migrating to Discord.
I’m also used to being the senior writer in my contracts – usually just because of my age. I’ve been a caregiver for my elderly parents on and off for the past 20+ years, so I’ve been around a lot of old people. Nursing homes, hospitals.
My first novel was published in 2003. My next novel, Talio’s Codex, is coming out in 2024. In a way, it feels like a debut novel, all over again. I spent that 20-year gap caregiving, working, dealing with medical issues and being in a relationship. Now the future’s opened up again.
But it’s a necessarily foreshortened future. At 56, I have fewer years ahead of me than behind me. I feel a real pressure to write, to publish, to get those stories and books out while I still can. To hopefully leave a legacy behind.
At the same time, it’s easy to focus on the writing to the detriment of everything else. Part of what makes you a good writer are your experiences in the other parts of your life. I have no doubt that my writing would be a pale shadow of itself if I hadn’t seen and gone through the caregiving, parental losses, medical issues, relationships, and all the other bits that made up those 20 years.
So here’s to turning 56. I didn’t waste those past 20 years. I wrote while they were going on, but nothing serious. Now it’s time to get serious again. About writing, and about living.