Too Old To Write?

Starting off with a little housekeeping…In my NO KISSing blogfest post, I promised a $5 Amazon gift card for one commenter, and I’ll award it in a couple days. Comments are still coming in – got two this morning, in fact. You can jump HERE if you want to check out that post and get in on the giveaway. But only after you read today’s post, of course… 

When you bring to mind a picture of an artist, what do you see? Burning eyes? Gaunt cheekbones? Ratty studio apartment with no money to pay for heat? By the age of twenty-five they’ve created some masterwork in whatever their discipline, then they die before they’re thirty or go on to live a semi-famous life, never quite reaching the heights they once did.

Right?

And what do you think of the middle-aged person who joins a rock band? Or the retirement-age person who signs up for a watercolor class at the Community Center? They couldn’t be artists, right? They’re not burning with creative energy, or driven, or, you know, gaunt.

Right?

So at the risk of sounding like I take myself way too seriously, I’ve been thinking lately about whether it’s possible to pick something up at mid-life (or at least a time that I HOPE is the middle of my life, and not too near the end) and do something good with it. Maybe not art – because let’s face it, my gaunt days are long over – but something decent, so that in fifty years if my grandkids are tooling around Amazon and stumble across something by Liv Rancourt, they’ll be like, “Oh yeah, that one book she wrote was pretty good.”

I always knew I’d be a writer. It just took me to the age of forty-seven to decide that it was time. And, with the help of my Amazingly Patient Husband and the support of an awesome group of friends from RL and the internet, I am doing it. I try to learn from every blog post, short story, and novel that I write, edit, or read, and then funnel that learning into my next project. While I try not to take MYSELF too seriously, I take my writing very seriously.

Research shows that involving yourself in creative pursuits when you’re older can have health benefits, and heck, sitting at the table writing is a lot easier than going to the gym and lifting weights. It also means putting yourself out there, opening up to criticism, taking a risk.

I think that’s the key, and the thing that so many of us struggle with. When you’re in your forties or fifties, you’re likely at the top of your game professionally. Your identity as an adult is pretty secure. In any number of different ways, you’ve answered the question: what am I going to be when I grow up?

So why the hell would you take on something new?

It means going back to being a novice, a beginner, and instead of a steady stream of praise for a job well done, you get people saying you suck because you use too many adverbs.

Ouch!

My whole life I’ve been attracted by the challenge of doing what scares me the most. Job in the NICU? Check. Fronting a rock band? Check. Naval-gazing blog posts on what it’s like to get older? Gotcha covered. The writing thing is a natural extension of the rest of my life. I figure I’ll keep at it until I’ve said what I need to say.

And then I’ll sign up for that watercolor class.

What do YOU think? Are you ever too old to take on something new?

Peace,

Liv

…oh, and if you want to do a little more reading on this subject, here’s a jump to a nice HuffPo article by Timothy Carpenter…