Decline
Authors my age worry about decline. We wonder whether we're heading downslope, long past our peak, and whether we should quit writing before we wreck whatever reputation and readership and loyalties we have won over the years.
There are the telltale signs. The work goes slower than when we were young and quick. We forget things. We don't have the critical sense we once did. We're so used to pounding out stories that we write by rote instead of employing originality. We have a billion or so fewer brain cells than we once had.
It is also true that some writers much older than I are churning out fine novels, with no decline at all. Elmore Leonard comes to mind. The late Elmer Kelton was producing fine novels into his 80s. Philip Roth generates one fine novel after another, and he's two years older than I am. So there's always hope. Some old guys and gals are doing just fine at an advanced age.
I had thought I was doing very well. My Butte novel, out last fall, got a starred review from Kirkus, and a slew of superb reviews in various venues. But maybe not. I have written a few novels for a western author franchise in the last few years, the novels appearing under the byline of the late author. One appeared recently that has been trashed beyond anything I've ever encountered. It is, according to reader reviews, dull, boring, stupid, unreadable, badly written, and on and on, with most of the reviewers giving it one star, or maybe two. In 35 or so years of writing fiction, I've never experienced anything like that.
That, to put it plainly, is a red flag that says something about my late-life writing skills. And it makes me weigh the prospect of putting my writing aside, and living the rest of my years in quietness. I'm overdue to step off the train.
There are the telltale signs. The work goes slower than when we were young and quick. We forget things. We don't have the critical sense we once did. We're so used to pounding out stories that we write by rote instead of employing originality. We have a billion or so fewer brain cells than we once had.
It is also true that some writers much older than I are churning out fine novels, with no decline at all. Elmore Leonard comes to mind. The late Elmer Kelton was producing fine novels into his 80s. Philip Roth generates one fine novel after another, and he's two years older than I am. So there's always hope. Some old guys and gals are doing just fine at an advanced age.
I had thought I was doing very well. My Butte novel, out last fall, got a starred review from Kirkus, and a slew of superb reviews in various venues. But maybe not. I have written a few novels for a western author franchise in the last few years, the novels appearing under the byline of the late author. One appeared recently that has been trashed beyond anything I've ever encountered. It is, according to reader reviews, dull, boring, stupid, unreadable, badly written, and on and on, with most of the reviewers giving it one star, or maybe two. In 35 or so years of writing fiction, I've never experienced anything like that.
That, to put it plainly, is a red flag that says something about my late-life writing skills. And it makes me weigh the prospect of putting my writing aside, and living the rest of my years in quietness. I'm overdue to step off the train.
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