I started writing later in my life. I’d had children, I already had a career I loved, and yet there was always this niggling voice in the back of my head telling me I had to write a novel. I wouldn’t be happy until I had. So as my age progressed on and I started fibbing about how old I was, I decided I needed to do something about it and I sat down and started typing. Yes, just like that. Hannah Robbins 2 has a lot more organisation about it than Shallow Waters did.
I found this short video where Lee Child talks about how he came to writing after 40. He believes it was the best thing for him.
Do you think writers need some life behind them to be able to write or can you write well at any age?
Loved his attitude. Get on with it. it will work, it has to work. Thanks for sharing.
I’m glad you liked it. I also like that attitude. But with something as long as a novel you really do need to be that focuses don’t you? It’s a marathon piece of work!
I think all writers are different. Some are preternaturally gifted, some realize that writing is what they want to do very early and know the themes they are going to explore in their writing. I came to writing relatively late – that’s just how it was for me. I don’t think you can generalize in any way about this because writers are a very mixed bunch.
They really are a mixed bunch aren’t they? I do wish I’d had the courage to sit down and start sooner than I did. But I have to work with what I have now. I do love that there is room enough for everyone in the writing world because the reading world is so eclectic.
Writers’ styles and voices are different. So are their experiences. Writing is something one can start at any age, really. And I like the fact that ‘Over 40’ is one of those ages. I know people who are quite young and already writing. I also know people who are – erm – not so young and just got started. The writing world is a diverse one.
I know I started late but I also wish I’d started a lot younger. I’d have had time to practice. To get to know the publishing industry. All the things I’m doing now but with more life and energy in me!
I think it helps. I wrote some when I was younger but didn’t really start writing novels until my forties.
So it looks as though he could have a point about life experience…
Loved this piece! I didn’t, however, like the crack the interviewer made “late in life.” Since when is almost 40 late in life? Man, that means I must have one foot in the grave. LOL Lee’s philosophy is similar to mine. Get the words down and it’ll all work out. As to whether you need to experience life in order to write about it. Yes, I think there’s logic in that statement.
Reblogged this on Anita & Jaye Dawes.
Thanks for sharing this, Rebecca. As I’m now in my fifties, I feel as if my work will be far from hollow, to pick up on one of Lee Child’s comments. And, joking aside, I know when I look back at stuff I wrote when I was younger that there wasn’t the same depth, so there is a lot of truth in that.
I’m a fan of the ‘it doesn’t matter when you start as long as you start’ school of thought. I wrote hundreds of stories when I was a child, but stopped putting the ideas down in writing when life grew busy and non-fictional, so they only existed as day dreams. When I started writing again it was sheer joy – though hard work. Now I have two murder mysteries published I’m totally thrilled every time someone likes them. I read voraciously but rarely check the age of the author. I love some books by young writers and some by older ones – what matters is that they should be enthralling!