A writer of a certain age

Tap into your layers of history and experience

I am trying to imagine writing a novel when I was in my 20s. Out of journalism school, a television reporter making $8,000 a year in Odessa, Texas. It was 1978.

At least I wasn’t a grad student still swaddled in academia, but I still didn’t know what I didn’t know. It smelled like crude oil there. The landscape was flat and monotonous, peppered with pumpjacks. I would get so homesick and alienated that I came home to the suburbs of Dallas after six months. I (temporarily) abandoned journalism and took a job with a customs house broker importing goods for Neiman-Marcus.

You know, all that could be in a novel. But at the time, I was up to my eyeballs in it.

In my low-residency MFA program, I am the second oldest student. The person I most connected with over themes and Big Ideas was also older than me; she is now in the class after mine. With decades of history and living and struggling and reinventing myself behind me, I finally found myself in a place and time to write.

At 67, I am kind of like an old house. There are layers and layers of two by fours, sheetrock, peeling paint, ugly wallpaper, knotty pine paneling, linoleum — and maybe a little mold. But lots of character!

I can tap into those rich experiences. History. Books. People. Running home from the school bus stop to watch John Glenn orbit the Earth. Learning of the assassination of JFK at a Brownie troop meeting. Vietnam. Nixon resigning. The Challenger explosion. September 11. My life is like that Billy Joel song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” All those images and experiences are seared into my brain. I also have hundreds (maybe thousands) of books catalogued in there, too.

My point is, O Person of a Certain Age: Not only are you never Too Old, you are also not Too Young. That’s a good thing! On a recent Drexel Zoom call with a well-known literary agent, I asked what she thought about older female protagonists. She gave the most positive and encouraging response.

My protagonist is 65. Some of her experiences mirror mine, but she is not me. Readers describe her as complex, interesting, funny, vulnerable and poignant. So far they’ve laughed at the right places and some have cried where I was hoping they might tear up.

I always thought I had a novel in me. Now I think there may be several. If you are older, this is your opportunity to seriously think about carving out time in your life for writing. Even pursuing an MFA. If I can do it, so can you. Writing is something you can do from a beach chair or a recliner — as long as you have lived long enough to store up all that experience.

My 1978 TV guide photo from KOSA-TV in Odessa-Midland, Texas. No sexism here!