I’ve been writing consistently since I was twelve, which means I’ve now been writing for the (amazingly long very short?) period of twenty-two years. In that time, almost as much about my writing has changed as has remained the same.
This is something I’ve been casually pondering for a while now. Then, last week, I received the following email from David Hall:
Down the street I can see 70 years coming toward me. A few more months and it will be impossible to avoid. Have you ever discussed age and how it affects the material we write?
For starters, let me say that this one of my favorite types of email to receive—those sent to me by older writers who are either just starting out or are still going strong. With this year’s birthday, I will reach the moment in my life where fifty is as near to me in the future as twenty is in the past (and since I still feel like I’m a seventeen-year-old who was somehow given a fake ID, I’m experiencing a mild case of shock over the realization). It is deeply inspiring to me to realize how much can yet be accomplished in the years still before me.
I’m also beginning to realize that whatever those years bring, I will almost certainly be surprised by their offerings. Certainly, the effects on my experiences as a writer are vastly different to me as an adult than they were when I was a child. Indeed, since I never expected things to change at all in that regard, the differences I’ve encountered have all been tremendous surprises, sometimes disturbing, sometimes delightful.
Although at present, I can offer only a limited amount of personal insight into the how your age affects your writing (no doubt David could offer a good deal more himself), since I was asked I thought it might be a fun topic to explore. This is especially so in light of the fact that the readers who frequent this site present a vast variance in age—and also because this is, inevitably, a topic that touches us all.
The Three Acts of the Writing Life
Interestingly enough, this idea of life evolution and how age affects our perspective of and impact on life is one I’ve lately been exploring from the lens of story theory. As I’ve teased a few times on the podcast, I’m currently wrapping up research for a new blog series that will explore successive archetypal character arcs, which are representative of the seasons—or acts—of life.
As a sneak peak, since it ties in with today’s subject, I believe we see the pattern of story structure’s Three Acts played out in the typical human lifetime—in which approximately thirty years comprises each act.
The First Act—roughly, our first thirty years—is largely about defining our relationships with ourselves and our own personal identities. When the archetypal arcs of those years are properly completed, they lay the foundation for healthy arcs in the following acts.
The Second Act, made up of roughly the next thirty years, is focused on our relationships with others—friends, mates, children, community.
Finally, the Third Act—what for most of us will be the last thirty or so years in this life—then becomes the climactic act, which focuses on our relationship to Life and Death itself, in all its transcendent mystery.
Even though I began studying these “life arcs” as a way to further develop my understanding of how to structure my characters’ arcs in the most resonant way, the reason these arcs are archetypal is because they necessarily first apply to our own lives. Because I can already see the First and now the Second Acts playing out in my life, I believe the archetypal principles of the Third will ring true as well.
The Writing of Youth: Writing to Ourselves
Why We Write: In both my young self and in the many young writers with whom I regularly interact, I see the ebullient joy of creation simply for creation’s sake and a sort of desperation—as represented in Jo March’s statement (from the 1994 film adaptation of Little Women):
Late at night my mind would come alive with voices and stories and friends as dear to me as any in the real world. I gave myself up to it, longing for transformation.
We start writing for the pure joy of it, whether it is the joy of fantasizing ourselves into the midst of miraculous adventures or the cathartic joy of our angst poured out in characters who are deeply intimate projections of ourselves.
What We Write: When we are young, writing is an exploration. I daresay the young dislike the stricture that we should “write what we know” more than any of us. After all, the only things we know at that age are what we write.
And we write all kinds of things—fantasy, romance, adventure, even serious social dramas. We are perhaps never more derivative than in the beginning, as we begin inhabiting and owning the stories of others which have first carried us away with ourselves. But we are also perhaps never more original than at this age—when everything is new. When I look back at the stories I wrote in my First Act, there is a special freshness and passion within their rawness and clumsy technique. For all that my adult novels are technically “better,” they are not stories I inhabit in the same way I did those early ones.
How We Write: We write like Jo March, scribbling madly away into the night. However much we may desire the approval and enjoyment of early readers, we write these stories for ourselves. We write, not because it’s a job, not because we’ve made it a goal to show up at the desk everyday, but because we want to. We write ourselves bleary into the night and think it the greatest fun of all.
We write with varying degrees of control and technique. If we pursue our writing diligently as time rolls on, we begin to discover that writing is not simply the breathing of one’s soul upon the page. It is, indeed, the art of communication, and that however innately talented or imaginative we believes ourselves, we aren’t actually that good at it. The angsty teenage years begin in earnest, affecting our writing as much as anything else, and we begin to take it all very seriously.
The Writing of Adulthood: Writing to Others
Why We Write: Well into my twenties, I insisted I wrote for myself and that I would continue to write even if I knew no one would ever read what I wrote. Although I still (mostly) stand by that, I have witnessed a distinct change in myself here in my mid-thirties. My Second Act has seen me grieve for and grapple with the fallen expectation that my relationship to my writing would always be as ecstatic as it was in my First Act. More than that, I’ve surprised myself by realizing that not only do I now write as much for others as for myself, but that it is important to me to do so.
If writing in the First Act was all about my joy in expressing and exploring myself, writing in my Second Act has brought with it the increasing awareness of my responsibility in relating with others and, indeed, my great desire to use writing to have a positive impact on my world. “There’s no such thing as just a story”—this statement began in my twenties as a passionate defense of the idea that my stories were an important part of my life, but has since transmogrified into an even more passionate belief that every word we write—fictional or not—is a catalyst either for good or for ill.
What We Write: The blaring passion of our early stories gives way to a more deliberate pursuit of meaningful resonance and purposeful originality. Although we may well “have just one story to tell and go on telling it over and over again in different ways,” we grow significantly more refined in our execution. The type of stories we tell may change entirely. The more ground we cover the more we may branch out, experimenting with how to share our enduringly passionate truths in original ways that avoid treading the same ground.
We become more conscious of the symbolism and themes that populate our stories. We understand what we are writing more clearly, to the point that ideas we would have blithely written about in the First Act are now rejected or perhaps just honed.
If we’re writing professionally, we’re also writing for others not just as a communal whole, but as customers. We’re constantly trying to find that balance between the old youthful enthusiasm, the demands and desires of the market, and our own purposeful convictions about the nature of art. In my experience of the Second Act so far, that is the hardest balance to perfect.
How We Write: For those of us who began writing in our First Act, we have the blessing of years of experience and learning behind us at this point. We’ve made mistakes and learned from them—both in style and in process. We’re perhaps at the stage of “knowing what we know.”
But that same experience that allows us to easily avoid the beginner’s mistakes can also lead us to burnout and repetitive fatigue. Some of the methods that served us well in the first blush of youthful passion no longer come as easily. We have to reconnect with the inner child, with the deep motivations that brought us to writing in the first place. We have to learn how to harmonize the child and the adult into a new synthesis that is built upon the past but also completely different from what we may have taken for granted would always be our own particular creative experience.
The Writing of Age: Writing to the Universe
Why We Write: As we enter the Third Act, I imagine we may well find ourselves having proven—to ourselves and to others—many of the challenges that seemed so vital in our early acts. There is a return of sorts to the old stomping ground of the First Act, when we wrote purely for ourselves because we wanted to and because it brought us joy. But now we write from the vantage of long years of experience and knowledge.
The passionate stories we wrote as children were questions we asked of the life that lay before us. Many of those questions have now found their answers. Now it is something else that lies before us and new questions that our stories ask. So I imagine we write both for ourselves—to ask these larger questions—but also for others—to leave to them some of the answers we have found.
What We Write: I think there is a period late in the First Act and throughout most of the Second when we care zealously about how our writing will be received and what sort of impact it may make on our readers. But I also think that at a certain point we don’t care as much. Authors in their Third Act aren’t as rigorous with their form anymore. They begin experimenting more. They are asking questions again rather than just filling in the expected answers, and these questions show up in how they treat the actual process of writing as much as anything else. There is a playfulness that may not have been fully present previously.
Too, I see in many older authors a deeper passion than ever before. Their time is limited. Their own life stories are coming to a close. They have only so much longer to share the stories that are important and to give to the following generations—of both readers and writers—the truths they have won in their own hard-fought battles. If our Third Act sees us sometimes more playful than we have allowed ourselves to be before, it may also see us more intense than ever.
How We Write: After a lifetime of writing (or even just a lifetime of living come to that), there is a good deal of instinct that naturally flows through us. Techniques we struggled with in the First and Second Acts are long since mastered. If story itself remains an affectionately unruly beast, it is perhaps one we no longer view with the same frustrated suspicion we sometimes did in our earlier life. Perfection may both come more easily and, in some measure, be less important. We’re now writing less because we have something to prove to the world and more because we have something to share.
***
In closing this post, I realize even more than when I began it that I’m massively unqualified to have written it, since more than half of my ideas about it are total conjecture. Still, it has been a thought-provoking exercise and roused a hopefully not-too-idealistic anticipation of what the rest of my Second Act and all of my Third Act will bring for me as a writer. Since we are all at different points in our life stories, I hope you will share you own insights into how age affects your writing—both in its challenges and its opportunities.
Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! How does age affect your writing? Tell me in the comments!
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About K.M. Weiland | @KMWeiland
Hello Katie,
your topic struck the nail on its head with me. I guess that, based on the feedback, you will be able to segment your readership. 😀
It was always my dream to be a writer, ever since my early twenties, but I always feared not to have enough life experience to write about. This was typical evidence of lacking self-confidence. Now I have the urge to write to tell my story, not in a biographical sense, but rather about what I learned about life. And my goal is to complete this before I take off. This gives me the illusion of living a second life, different from my own, based on experiences I’ve had, in different contexts. The protagonist lives a military career, an option I didn’t take, although I went to a military (naval) school and was also a reserve officer for a couple of years. What I keep asking myself, while I write, is: does this matter in face of death? Would I still be writing this if I were about to die? This is a good filter.
I am approaching my seventies as well.
“Would I still be writing this if I were about to die” is exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you! I’m just entering my 50s, but had a bout with cancer a few years ago and have a pretty clear sense of mortality. This helps clear up the confusion of possible stories, thinking about what’s “marketable,” etc. etc.
It’s a great filter–no matter our age!
I wrote my first novel at age 20, but lost the draft while hitch-hiking in Europe and didn’t have the will to restart it — probably an indication the novel was best left lost. I spent the next 44 years as a journalist and academic, doing lots of writing, but mostly about the exterior of events. I retired to have the time to go back to novel writing to deal with the interior emotions and thoughts. But now I have the advantage of a lifetime of experience — travel, learning, relationships and stories to draw on. My first novel (an historical novel, Beads on a String) has been accepted for publication — due out in September. Now at work on the sequel I realize I will probably need four books to tell the full, multi-generation tale.
It was interesting to read through your three ages of writing. I suspect that as a novelist I am dealing with elements of the first and third ages at once. I have the excitement of characters and situations bouncing around in my brain like a teenage writer. At the same time, I know that at age 71, I may not have the time to get tell all the stories I want to tell. While I know I still have much to learn of novel writing technique, I have been experimenting with forms much different from those I used as a journalist and perhaps a bit different from other novelists.
As I edit my writing I ask myself whether each chapter, each scene is what I want to leave behind for others. As you noted “—to leave to them some of the answers we have found.” That has become my main source of motivation and satisfaction.
“I wrote my first novel at age 20, but lost the draft while hitch-hiking in Europe”–there’s a story in that alone!
Congrats on your publication!
Really? I’ve never written in that “first age”–and I’ve been writing since I was, say, eleven or so, like you. At 68, I’m still not interested in writing about Third Act. Nor will I be, I don’t think, except in relation to what You’re calling Second Act. I tend to personalize Death as a character. But, then again, I write epic fantasy (Terry Pratchett, for instance, uses Death as a character remarkably well). We’ll have to see when you get there if you actually do write Third Act more than once.
Yes, I know I projected much of myself and my own experiences into this post. I was interested to see where it diverged for others.
I am going to be turning Fourty next year. (It’s weird because I’m only just now starting to feel like I’m in my Thirties.) I’m not sure how my age affects what I write, though I have found that I’m a bit more comfortable in my own skin, and have an easier time relating to other people. I guess I’d be on the tail-end of the middle act. I’ve been trying to regain a sense of joy in my writing -something I lost for awhile. Not that I expect all my youthful exuberance to return! I’m just trying to put less pressure on myself while I work.
Yeah, the thirties seem to be a weird age. You still feel young and yet middle age is right there in front of you.
Good for you! Mine never left, but I only published for the first time last year.
Congratulations! That is awesome! 🙂 I am still unpublished, which is why I was putting so much pressure on myself to measure up. (It took me a long time to let go of the idea that I had to go the traditional rout, which didn’t help. -Too easy to freeze up because you’re suddenly convinced the book will turn out unmarketable.)
A question was posed to me a few months ago. “What story would you write if it was the last story you would ever write?” I thought. And thought. I have several titles and worksheets that will be stories some day (I hope), but I answered with the title of the story I’m presently first drafting/editing/layering. The working title, funnily enough, is “No Tomorrows”.
The one who asked the question answered. “Write that one. Don’t stop until it’s finished. Then write the next story that will be the last one you will ever write. It’s the only way.”
I love that advice.
I started writing seriously in 2015, when I was 61. I can’t honestly say, “I’ve always wanted to write”…it wouldn’t be true. But, I’ve always wanted to create. For the first and second acts, I was a vocalist and created music. Then I lost that ability through an illness. It was hard, believe me. It was my identity.
In 2015, I sort of fell into writing-the best slide of my life.
So now, it’s like I’m trying to cram my first and second acts into my third-sort of mash them up together. It’s exhilarating! Some days I approach my keyboard with that top-of-the-roller-coaster feeling of the first act. Other days, more plodding and rule-oriented. Then days when it all seems to come together and I write that one sentence I’ve wanted to write forever. The sentence that makes me say, “Aha! That’s what it’s all about.”
Then, I realize, rather sheepishly, that it was my MC who came up with that sentence-not me.
That’s even better.
I love that advice and may just have to employ it myself.
I love this advice, too! This is advice to ponder.
That’s a great question. I’m going to have to give that some thought myself–especially as I’m still the throes of a story that’s been stuck for over a year now. I’ve always believed the story I’m supposed to be writing is the one in front of me–but there is one particular story I know I want yet to tell before I’m done. If I continue with my current plan of finishing my Dreamlander and Wayfarer trilogies, it will be years yet before I tackle it.
I am a teenager and I’ve fallen in love with writing. Although I’ve always enjoyed writing and making music, acting and photography, those futures haven’t been as real to me as authoring. Balancing homeschool, music, photos, art and writing has been difficult for me, but I guess I’ve been pushing my way through it all. I’ve dreamed of being on a stage and having my own albums, but sometimes it is saddening when that seems so far in my future.
Writing helps me dream of a world where I can come up with characters who do what I wish I could do. Superheroes, famous musicians, photographers travelling across the world and bounty hunters roaming throughout the galaxy –they bring me encouragement and excitement. Maybe it’s hard to make friends in real life, but it sure is easy when you have a pen and paper.
I hope I never lose my passion and I hope no one else loses their passion. I once thought I’d lost my passion for music and I asked God to help me get it back. A quiet voice answered: You haven’t lost your passion. You just have to do something with it.
And I have been doing my best to follow through with my commitment.
All those who read this, keep up the writing!!
There is a ton of truth is the idea that if we don’t exercise our passions, we lose them. Sometimes even just the act of writing when we don’t feel like it is enough to kickstart everything again.
I totally agree. About a year ago, I began writing a science fiction novel and I ended up basically trying to put Star Wars and Star Trek into one book and the blend… let’s just say it wasn’t so good.
I gave up on writing then and thought that I’d never write anything again. Then I started goofing off with a simple idea of making a clean, not-overly-preaching Christian, serious, action novel. And then I started writing and writing and writing. I got so excited and I finished the first draft in less than six months. I was so excited because it was the first project I’d ever actually gotten anywhere with. Now I’m halfway through the second draft and I’m loving every step of it (besides fixing the mistakes I made in the first draft.)
And what’s better than that, is that I actually inspired my little sister to start writing. She’s never really wanted to do anything specifically with her life and now that she does… it’s so exciting.
Thank you for having such an amazingly helpful website. You’re making a big difference in this world.
And it’s for the better.
🙂 Have a fantastic day –to all who’s reading this.
-Staci
And Staci, you have just inspired me, a 62 year-old who’s been writing since she was six!
I completely agree with your three act descriptions, KM! I lived them all, including getting burned out after a well-received first novel at about 40 years old… couldn’t write anything I was happy with for more than a decade, then decided I was just going to write for me–again.
And I’ve been doing that ever since. When a reader writes (or comments in a review) that they enjoyed a book of mine, I rejoice. But those days of writing to publish, to impress, to prove something to myself or others–are gone. Ahhh!
Thanks for this great post!
That’s great, Ellen. I think we writers generally put way too much pressure on ourselves to conform to some “standard” of what a writer should look like–usually, someone very prolific. Being a writer looks different for all of us. We have only to look at Harper Lee to know that sometimes one good book is better than a couple dozen.
I love this post because I have had such a similar experience. I’m a teenager, and an ex-homeschooler, and I only recently started outlining a Christian fantasy. Still working on how to make it meaningful without it becoming preachy. Good luck with your second draft! (PS: my attempts at SciFi have turned out very similarly😂)
That’s fantastic, Ellen. I still struggle not to try and impress people with what I write. (not that I ever do impress anyone) It’s just that sometimes it’s so easy to look at what people want to see and try to be it or write it. Pleasing people is a weakness I’ve had to deal with a lot. Being a mediator personality, I try to make everyone happy… and that is a very, very, impossible task in this broken world of ours.
Thanks, Grace! 😀 Good luck on your fantasy novel too! Not being to harshly preachy has been a difficulty for me. I read a few of my old short stories a few days ago and wow… thank God I found this website. ♥ ♥ Yeah… sci-fi is a path I’ll travel on a little later in life… once I completely forget Star Wars and Star Trek so I don’t get influenced. XD
Amazing advice, Katie. You’re a fantastic author. Your blog is awesome!
Thanks for reading, Staci! 🙂
I started my novel at age thirteen, and am now seventeen-almost-eighteen. I had a bout of serious burnout in which I thought I’d never be able to write again. I am now coming out on the other side of that and I feel like I am in the latter stages of the Adulthood section of writing. Do you think that’s possible?
Makes total sense to me. I have a theory that we all have just one story to tell and most of us go on telling it over and over again in different ways. But maybe you just did it all in one book!
Great post!!! I’m in my early 70’s and have been writing ever since I could hold a crayon! Short stories, plays for the neighborhood kids – life experiences (as well as a wickedly inexhaustible imagination!) DO help to round out one’s writing and of course, I’ve had all those years to practice! I SHOULD be a bit better, and hopefully I am! Writing and story telling is in my blood and hopefully it will continue to be as I take my last breath.
Love this! I used to write plays too when I was young. In fact, I think there was a play I wrote when I was around eleven that was probably the first thing I ever wrote. It was called the “Royal Lovers.” :p
I have read so many self-published books, especially non-fiction, by writers in the third phase of life. As you mentioned, they are less concerned about style, and more concerned about content. They’ve had something inside of themselves for their whole life. By God they’re going to say it in the strongest language, and to as many people as will listen.
Wouldn’t it be nice if they could be more subtle? Give us something to think about, and stop writing in bold, italics, and underlined.
I suppose it depends on the topic, the author, and the intended audience. I was thinking more of experienced authors who have written their whole lives and who branch out in the Third Act.
I’ve been writing since I was about 16 though seriously only in the last 9 years. In a way, I feel like I’ve covered all of those three acts in these last years. In the last couple of years, I’ve moved back to what I love…fiction. Though I wrote poetry first, as a way to get my thoughts and feelings out, it was in fiction where I found my heart. So, I’ve returned to it.
If we look at life as a Three-Act model, I absolutely believe we see a sort of spiral pattern in which the essence of the structure repeats itself on a smaller scale over and over and throughout our lives.
As an older writer, I have seen cultural changes reflected in the romance stories, mainly regarding sex. It used to be that sex before marriage was frowned upon and now is acceptable. It used to be that heroines were content to give up their career ambitions when they married, but now they want it all and can have it in the happily ever after endings. Like in real life, heroines have all sorts of occupations formerly only held by men. In my stories, I have tried to keep up with the times and try to keep younger writers in my critique group to remind me when I write something that sounds old-fashioned. Deb said to think I’m writing the last story I will ever write, but I have too many ideas and don’t want to stop writing stories. Carolyn Rae, author of Royal Wedding Scoop, Cordillera Royals.
There’s so much value in a diverse critique pool.
1 – In my teens and very early twenties, I spent most of my time writing fiction (when I wasn’t creating comic books). Some short stories, but mostly novels, genre fantasies that I never finished. Honest friends pointed out how my prose strained to Sound Like A Writer, and in retrospect it was uniformly terrible.
2 – Once I hit my mid-twenties, I gave up and convinced myself that I was Not A Writer. Oh, I still wrote stories, but they were all comics scripts. Almost without realizing, I also found outlets for columns and essays. All of these were fairly well received, but I (for whatever reason) didn’t consider any of it Real Writing.
3 – Nearly four decades passed. My reading habits changed: I abandoned genres that no longer spoke to me, and took up reading other books that I wouldn’t have gone near in my youth. At age 61, I discovered the unadorned prose of Alice Munro, which suddenly made me feel like this was something I could do. And that year, my wife, a NaNoWriMo veteran of several years, finally convinced me to try it with her after many unsuccessful attempts.
I completed my NaNo novel in less than half a month, and went on the following year to write four more. And I’m inclined to agree with much of your assessment of the Third Act: I write what I want, because I want. I don’t worry overmuch about toeing the line of the various How-To rules. (Which may cost me a readership, but so be it. If I were seeking a mass audience, I would be trying to write what they want.) And yes, a lot of what’s in my books is me putting out there some things I have learned, for those who might care to look.
NaNo has been so great in this respect for so many people.
I am writing in my Third Act and I have another writing dilemma: my characters are MG age. Their life is different from mine now, although I am attempting one MG family mystery that takes place in the city and year that I was a MG child. Another book is contemporary. So I read the new and classic books of children the age of my protagonists and imagine in my brain what they are telling me about their lives. A famous MG/YA author recommends we label ourselves pre-published instead of “unpublished. ”
Thanks for this introspective post!
“Pre-published”–I like that!
Katie,
Very interesting and thought provoking post, as always.
As you stated in the post, life arcs are one of the influencers of character arcs. I’m wondering if it is more complex than I first thought. I get that there are truisms which serve as the foundation for archetypes. But, also there are so many variants based on background, relationships and personalities, etc., that there are as many individuals within the archetypes as our imagination can come up with. It’s that variety, the idiosyncrasies, and changes characters experience which make writing and reading so enjoyable. I am very much looking forward to your upcoming series character arc blogs.
I think this principle may be true of writers, too. I am a new writer (at least in the “cross my fingers to get published“ sense) in my early sixties. I can see the third act tendencies to finish things while I still have time, but also having a perspective of that comes with years.
At the same time, I find myself caught up in your first act exploration. I recently hit the pause button on the manuscript I am working on because of a dream that is working it’s way into a fascinating short story.
I haven’t recognized much of the second act in myself as a writer, but I’m sure I can find it if I look hard enough. At any rate, I love your posts. Each one teaches me something both about my writing, and in “real” life.
Thanks for all your work.
Yes, I was wondering how the Acts might look different for authors who were in their life’s Third Act but just entering their First Act as writers.
I fall into that category, in my third act of life and my first as a “pre-published” writer. Although I have published hundreds of lab reports, and written many background stories for characters/players in my gaming group, I had never attempted a novel until I retired. Since finishing the first draft (almost two years ago,) I have been reworking the first chapter… over and over and over. My friends tell me I need to finish and get it on the market (one even says it is better than most of the self-published books he reads.)
But, it is not…? I keep reading blogs from other writers and listening to your podcasts, being inspired to work some more, finding flaws, but not completing the first chapter to my satisfaction. Unlike a young author, I wonder if I have time to polish my story to my satisfaction.
Honestly, sometimes I wonder that too. 😉
Well, Katie, I didn’t start writing until the third act. My first writing attempt I was 75 and that ended up my published memoir at age 81. I wrote for others–the grandchildren. I was upset that my grandparents never talked about their early years, I never really knew much about their life. That experience, and being introduced to Creative non-fiction, led me to try a fiction piece. That was published “a women’s fiction novel,” at age 84. Yes in both instances, I wrote about what I had experienced and or knew others who had a story I wanted to tell. My topics, of course were germane to my generation. A short story- “The Christmas of ’44” was about the worries of a nine year-old that WWII might cancel Christmas. I am driven by a need to keep learning, and experiencing new things. You have been an inspiration for me since I first started. Thanks for all the good ideas. I expect to give you notice as a guiding light in my website, http//www.richardmarcott.com in the near future. I read your blog every week.
That’s great. I often wish my grandparents were still alive to tell me more about their lives.
Dick, you are an inspiration to me! I am 71 and have been telling myself I am getting too old for a novel. I can’t use that excuse any more! Thank you so much for posting!
At 73, my writing is bound only my imagination. I’ve easily slipped into first-person as a thirteen-year-old boy and a twenty-seven-year-old woman. There are more pieces about death and dying, but that’s no surprise.
That’s awesome. 😀
Well, all that introspective analysis is good, I suppose, but didn’t happen that way to me. I was a trained professional stage/film/TV actor for 45 years. Basically retired at around age 65…or just stopped getting good jobs. Like all actors, I dabbled in writing screenplays. We almost all get the thought when we audition for or perform certain characters in certain stories…’Who wrote this crap? Hell, I can write better’n this.’ So, I suppose I wrote somewhere around twenty screenplays and around thirty teleplays (shorter). Actually got one that I wrote funded, produced, and I directed it. Won a few awards but never achieved wide distribution.
A friend from the Marine Corps contacted me to say, ‘Hey, Kenny, i wrote a novel’. – ‘Well, hell, good for you, John.” – ‘Can you adapt it to a screenplay?’ – ‘Sure, send it down.’ He sent a 730 page, 350,000 word novel. ‘Hell, John, why didn’t you send just War and Peace?’ – Long story short, my producer and I converted it to a 128 page screenplay in about 12 weeks. (It’s still making the rounds at Disney). My producer and I looked at each other when we finished and said together. ‘Hell, we can write a novel.” I was age 69. I just turned 79 last week and released novel #36. Fourteen with my partner and the rest alone (22) in four genres…Military action, Police procedural mystery, Western and Western Supernatural. I am currently writing two novels simultaneously, a Western Supernatural (part of a series) and an American Classic Mystery in the vein of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and Reavis Wortham’s ‘The Rock Hole’.
The upshot is at age 65 I found I still wanted to ‘Create’. I call myself a Storyteller who Writes. I love to entertain. I am a pure Pantser and write stories by Improv. Meaning I take Who, What, Where, When and sometimes Why and just go. I don’t think about life arcs, but use my years of experience as a great reservoir of information, characters, and situations. I just don’t think consciously about my character’s goals or the story goal, I just stay the hell out of the way and let the characters tell the story and it’s all by instinct.
One of my WIPs, the American Classic Mystery will be a first for me. All my previous work has been in third person…this one, entitled ‘Three Creeks’, will be in first. I sent the first chapter to a best selling author friend of mine for his objective view. He wrote back…’I read the first chapter. I am stunned, in a positive way. As good as your other writing is, this narrative just comes alive. The narrative itself is the stuff of serious literature. Depending on the rest of the plot and how it comes together, I wouldn’t be surprised to find this required reading in some schools in a few years. As good as your westerns are, this could be the novel that defines your career. This might be the one people talk about when your name is mentioned, even decades from now.’
If he was stunned, I was even more so. Wasn’t sure about the first person thing, but the damn thing just seems to be pouring out…We shall see.
Holy prolificacy! 😀
I, too, am a storyteller who writes. YOU are my hero!
I have always written. I wrote a 26-page story at ten, I write poetry the way others write journal entries. Like some others here I have made a life of creative pursuits, both personally and professionally. Writing was an avocation. In my 50s I embarked on novel-writing and I find it exhilarating to start something new in my third act of life. I feel no need to summarize a lifetime. Instead, I feel a wondrous sense of being an explorer of new worlds. It’s the same way I felt at 19 in a poetry class with a national poet as a teacher. So much to learn and discover. I hope to always keep that joy.
I keep wanting to do some poetry, but it just never happens. I read a quote somewhere that the poet’s brain is different, and I kinda feel that way. :p
You’re such a deep thinker and express these ideas so well. Though I’ve been writing since I was a teenager and have published short stories, I’m more serious about it in the sense that I want to do it continuously. But this comes later in life for me. Raising my kids and working has slowed the process, though not the passion. So considering the acts 1-3, it makes me wonder if I’ve returned to the game too late. Do I need to make a mental trek back to act 1 to “complete it” or move along? The answer is obvious, but it does lead to much pondering. That’s why it’s a great post!
Hopefully I’m not delusional when I think that my age (middle life) and life experience gives me SOME kind of advantage, even if I don’t feel I’ve traveled through the acts as you presented (or I have the acts scrambled up a bit ;-).
Perhaps I did experience act 1 as you described, and I’m in act 2. I just never thought of it that way. Great post. Thought-provoking.
Life doesn’t happen the same way for all of us. Each of us hits certain developmental stages and archetypes with more force than we do others. Sometimes, we have to do some catching up later in life on areas we didn’t fully develop. But, often, I find life just kind of catches us up all on its own. Our instincts arc even when we ourselves perhaps do not.
Hiya, I’m 65 and in lockdown in South Africa. I’ve been a fan for over two years. I’ve finished my first novel today! Put it up to Kobo and developed my own website to market. Every week I’ve tried to act on one of your posts! You’ve helped me so much. I’ve written a backward looking novel (to 2003 in post-Apartheid South Africa) The main POV is a fifteen year old, golf mad, girl from the townships. Couldn’t be further away from my persona, but you got me thinking out of the box. Tonight I thank you, these last few months of self-isolation would have been unbrearable without your posts.
Super-huge congrats! That’s fantastic. I’m unspeakably happy for you!
I just turned 70 this year. I’ve been writing since I was in grade school but only writing actual books after my parents passed away about 10 years ago. You see, I’m a lesbian and although my family loves and accepts who I am, my parents would have been embarrassed by my work. My dad was a minister. I couldn’t have shared my work with them and I would have wanted to.
Being older has now given me not only the freedom to write what I want about what I want, I also have, as you mentioned, the benefit of years of experience and reading and writing.
I think we all have different stories to tell at different times of our life, for many reasons.
Awesome post, K. M.!! What a way to draw us old folks out of the woodwork. I’m like David…looking at 70 and taking it as a blessing. I love where I am in my writing journey even though it’s kicking my butt. I write romance and it’s hard for me to write about the feelings of someone in their early thirties while trying to remember what it felt like for me. I rely on reading other romance writers for research and uses of phrases that are beyond me. I think my next romance will be about an older couple and second chances. That, I can relate to.
I’m thrilled to realize how many Third-Actors frequent the blog!
I’m in my mid thirties too; been writing off and on since I was a kid, and I don’t think I ever quite had that glorious joy in writing when I was young – not all the way through a piece; not more than I do now.
I think it was largely that my discernment of what was good writing and what wasn’t was always ahead of my writing skills. Like having perfect pitch and knowing you’re slightly off-key without being able to just fix it!
“My discernment of what was good writing and what wasn’t was always ahead of my writing skills.”
Which, honestly, is an *amazing* skill to have.
I started writing at age 7, mostly animal stories and stuff a 7 yr. old would find interesting. I wrote short stories and poetry through my school years, even had 2 of my poems published in the High School anthology.
I stuck mainly to poetry throughout my twenties and thirties, all that angst, meaning of love, heartache, and where to we go from here stuff. Somewhere in my forties and fifties, the passion went dormant.
In my sixties, it came back. I wrote a few fanfiction stories based on a video game I play. It was a nice way to come full circle without all the pressure and learn the basics all over again. At 70 I published my first book through a small indie press, but traditional nonetheless. I wrote because I wanted to, because I had a story to tell. I wasn’t looking for awards or accolades or even a lot of sales. I simply wanted to write and being published was a check mark on my bucket list. I’m now working on a novella that may turn into a series, if I don’t die before I wake.
Yes, all my early stories were about horses. It’s a good place to start. 😀
Well Katie, my story is also, to a considerable extent, about horses too😁
Thank you again for this post, as well as your ever inspiring blog. We all here clearly love and admire you, for your honesty, your courage and intelligence.
Maybe you’ll never make loads of bucks (we weren’t programmed for this from the beginning), but you are certainly offering an outstanding contribution as a leader of a faithful community.
Thanks for your very kind words, Piero! They go straight to my heart. 🙂
Kim, your posts are my ‘go to’ for writing lessons and inspiration. Thank you! This latest one must have been fun but challenging as you attempted to imagine the one/third of life you have yet to live.
I am exactly twice your age and found your perspective interesting but would like to offer my thoughts.
Many of us in the third act are alone. Family responsibilities are a distant memory and we have time – vast oceans of it – to do with as we please. You suggested that writers in their third stage reach ‘a certain point we don’t care as much’ how our writing will be received and its impact on our readers. I can only speak for myself, but I care very much about the connections I make with people through my writing. They become almost like extended family. I write to inspire my readers to contemplate deeper truths, let go of destructive beliefs, trust in their ability to solve problems and to fully live their lives. More than anything, I want to make a strong impact.
You also wrote that ‘authors in their Third Act aren’t as rigorous with their form anymore.’ Hopefully, by this point I know the rules and can get away with breaking them. That being said, I break them with studied intention. I love to experiment but my first concern is my audience. I keep in mind who I will alienate and whether or not it’s worth it.
‘They are asking questions again.’
Yes, we are, but I no longer expect yes or no answers and I’m much more comfortable with ambiguity than I used to be. I’ve realized that today’s right response may not work tomorrow and I’m okay with that.
Thank you for prompting me to think about how I write (and why) in this final phase. As I said, I’m a huge fan and look forward to learning more from you. Keep up the great work!
Yes, I dove into it thinking it would be an interesting subject to explore–then realized I was a middle-schooler trying to write about college experiences. :p
K.M., you didn’t present your post as the last word on the topic, but honestly posing it as an exploration, inviting any and all to contribute to the conversation. Thanks for opening up the subject!
Although I’m chronologically in the Third Act, I find myself relating more to your Second Act, especially when you brought up that “not only do I now write as much for others as for myself, but that it is important to me to do so.” I’m moving more and more determinedly into this as I build my portfolio for post-retirement occupation in writing and editing, and build my platform to support this goal.
Anything that engages our minds in creative contemplation is good!
I’m already interested to see what I’ll think about what I’ve written here in another thirty years! :p
As I approach 80 and work towards the publication of the last book in my first series, It makes me smile to hear a young person, shocked at nearing 50. When I realised that I still saw the world through young eyes, new and exciting, and removed all the mirrors from my house, growing old became so much easier. Imagine the power we would have, if you had my life experience and I had your writing experience. I love your podcasts. Keep well, James.
Yes, I knew when I wrote that intro I’d get indulgent smiles from more than half my readers. :p But you’re only 35 once!
Gods, K M! I love that! Totally resonates with me. I’m going to be quoting you on that, possibly a lot!
tc
Sometimes, I feel like the oldest writer alive but I couldn’t survive without doing so. I started writing contemporary romances, moved to western historical romances, wrote a women in jeopardy story based on my experience, and am now writing mysteries. It took me a long time to think I could. I guess my age helped me give it a try. The book is now published. At first, I was published traditionally. With my last three books, I decided to try indie. I’ve been told it is not a good idea to change genres. I think as I get older I don’t really care what I’m suppose to do or not do.
Your blogs are always interesting and inspirational.
Love that you’ve explored so many different kinds of stories throughout your life.
So inspirational reading your post and the accompanying comments. As a retired academic now with loads of time to finally start writing, just turned 70 and loving the freedom, I found your reflections powerful and insightful for such a young person! No offence! Love your work. The real challenge for me in writing contemporary novels is to keep u with the technology in the content. No more landline phones ringing! No more searching for answers anywhere other than google no more old fashioned relationships and careers for characters. Its a great challenge! However it does mean I have tons of life experience to share through characters and also specific knowledge to share in my storylines, which does give some depth. Its not all made up-its lived experience. You have so much more to experience in life and it can only add to your depth of emotional and intellectual resources for sharing in your writing. You are amazing . Keep up the work. Dr. Jean Healey
You can always write a “historical” novel set in the 1990s. 😉
I thought this was well-thought out, K.M. I am in the third part of my journey in writing but in truth, still learning how to get there and beyond.
Thanks, Traci! I love that the learning never stops.
I was intrigued by this post as soon as I read the title. I’m 75, and have been writing throughout my life, personally in journals and also professionally. I also taught English and writing, both creative and business, starting in my mid-40s.
I now keep separate notebooks for different types of writing; I use personal journals for exploring those “third-age” questions using inquiry, and sometimes experimenting with different styles of writing. Lines of poetry, imaginary conversations, short essays, chunks of memoir, and musing thoughts appear at random intervals. If I think I may want to include something in a project, I put one of those little arrow markers on the page, and can easily find it later.
I have more than one writing project–a novel, a short story collection, and some creative nonfiction ideas. There is a separate notebook for each project, so I can pick it up at any time and write by hand. I have a tendency to wake up at 2 a.m., and find that a fruitful time for creativity!
I do like to write with pen and paper, but sometimes I compose original material on the computer, where it will all end up eventually anyway.
Whether or not I publish isn’t a driving issue, although I am working on bringing a couple of projects to publishable completion. I’m an audience of one who sometimes shares, with a view that others may take off from my POV and continue to develop their own.
One of the joys of being this age is that if I circle back around to questions that were there in younger times, I become aware of the richness that age and life experience can offer–a much more inclusive and expanded view of life and the world.
Thank you for your blog, KM. I read it most weeks, and find you to be an inspiration.
“I’m an audience of one who sometimes shares.”
I resonate with that.
Dear Katie,
I am 70 years old but regard myself as a new writer. Although much of my working career involved business and technical writing, I didn’t try my hand at fiction until late in life, and it is a whole different experience for me.
Your description of the 3 acts resonates with my experience of writing fiction, but time is so condensed for the 3 acts because I began late. I began to seriously write fiction about 10 years ago after a devastating experience in my family. Writing about my feelings through imaginary characters helped me work through what id gone through. Similar to the Act 1 writer searching to discover him or herself. Through that time I didn’t think much about publishing. I wrote for me. And I doubted anyone else would read it.
At some point, though, I looked back at what I had written, and it was pretty good. I shared it with friends, who encouraged me to continue. A year ago I attended a writers conference and pitched the first couple of chapters to several agents, who said they liked it a lot, and to please finish it. I am amazed. That turned me to consider who my reader is, what my reader wants, what I want to say, what publishers want, etc. Like the second act.
But now that I’ve determined to share my story to whoever will read it, I find my mind turning to what you described as the third act. I try to resist this temptation to try to turn my fun little story that has just a bit of introspection into some Grand Novel proclaiming a Great Truth. I suppose I’ll find some balance as I continue!
Thank you for your posts. I learn a lot from you and am also encouraged by what you have to say.
The reason story structure works is because it mirrors life. But the timing in real life is often less specific or easy to pin down–in part because we often have so many stages and stories overlapping in different “acts.”
Great article! I can see from the comments that this resonated with many people.
I started writing when I was twelve. I agree with you that there is a big difference between writing for yourself and writing books that other people will want to read.
Finding the balance between writing what you want and what others will enjoy is an enjoyable challenge in itself.
My most creative and productive years were during my 50s, Katie, so look at the bright side.
Sounds good to me. 😀
My writing career has two stages – happy dilettante, and obsessive novelist. Until the age of 85, I dabbled in many genres; from day-to-day business writing, to verse, the occasional newspaper column, skits and sketches, and thoughtful essays, and even a one-act play.
My first tentative venture into fiction came when I joined a writing circle, with no thought of doing more than enjoying scribbling with a group of compatible companions. Flash fiction! This was fun. A couple of hundred words of whatever silly stories came into my addled brain. Just a single page of writing did not test my butterfly brain. I knew that I could never stick to one project long enough to write a novel. Not me. “Concentration” is not in my lexicon.
And then along came NaNoWriMo. I love challenges. This could be fun! I had a blast. At 6 am on the 1st November, I was at my computer, writing. 23 days later, I had the first draft of my first novel – 52000 words of it. That was my watershed moment. The ecstatic buzz that comes when you write “The End” had me hooked. I was instantly addicted.
For the last decade, I had been contemplating what I really wanted to do with what remained of my life. My husband had just died, and for the first time ever, I was responsible for no-one else, and to no-one else. I had several interests, but I understood that, as the infirmities of old age started to limit my activities, I would no longer be able to pursue some of them. NaNo had solved my dilemma. It showed me that I CAN write write novels, and that I WANT TO write write novels.
Finding my metier coincided with the happy state of no longer caring about what people think about me; which comes to us in the twilight of our lives. I had written a romance, complete with sex scenes. Briefly, I was coy about mentioning this – but what-the-hell. I now boast about it. To raised eyebrows, and “How can you do it at your age?” I have a response. “I’m a bit out of practice, but I still have a good memory, and an excellent imagination.”
And so here I am, and the age of 87 – having spent the 18 months since NaNo going through the whole process of editing, revising, more editing and revising; on the cusp of self-publishing my first novel: with a novella hot on its heels, and two more works in progress.
“The happy state of no longer caring about what people think about me; which comes to us in the twilight of our live.”
Totally looking forward to that! :p
I wished to argue with you even before reading your piece, prepared for some ageism, defensive, I was entrenched. You opened a door, several doors.
Back there I found my passion and hope, my energy and the huge thirst in me to forge a career in writing that would take me away from being a shop-assistant, failed at school, to a woman, a journalist who might even save some part of the world. Then there was the middle part, where in my case I felt some disillusionment, I had not saved the people I wanted to save and so I left writing, took up counselling and teaching and parenting.
Then comes this third stage where again I have passion, where the weave of my creative writing has a texture and a taste. Somewhere in there I gained an MA. I have been published. I do long to try new things and death can wait, I hope! I miss those I have lost. Grief is the large presence of ghosts.
The relationship arcs though were more about finding my ground. My early years where I received love but also abuse and loss. The years when I didn’t deal with this and encountered more abuse. The ground where I raced away from the Heathcliffe types and as a mother parenting alone had the great good fortune to meet a really good man, realised at last that real chemistry is an internal thing. This love – the love of acceptance of my real self has ignited a passion is better than anything I experienced before. When I was young and beautiful that beauty seemed to belong to someone else, it wasn’t mine. Now my beauty is the interior world and I feel its truth. Not everyone sees that but poor them! What matters is the beauty of nature, the absolute beauty of being. Death can wait, this is my time and I will write to that open gate and out – out into the field.
“When I was young and beautiful that beauty seemed to belong to someone else, it wasn’t mine. Now my beauty is the interior world and I feel its truth.”
Thank you for this. It’s a truth I feel I needed to hear, today especially since it ties in within some things I’ve been pondering. I will tuck it away for the future, when I will probably need it even more!
When I was younger my writing reflected the lives I secretly wanted to live. At 6 I was writing short stories about treasure hunts with friends, at 10 going to boarding school with midnight feasts. As a teenager it was love poetry full of yearning. As I hit my twenties I wrote 3 superficial romantic novels (unpublished). Pretty rubbish but by golly I was up at 5 every morning scribbling away before heading out to my paid job and back at my writing every evening . In my thirties my writing was neglected as I juggled family and work and it wasn’t until my late fifties I restarted. This time round I’ve been more ambitious wanting to write novels that pose serious questions. i may not have the same energy that my younger self threw at her writing but I’m more widely read and have a better understanding of story, structure and character.
Sometimes the rubbish stories are the most fun. 😉
I have been writing in fits and starts across my life. As a child I wrote stories and illustrated them. In my teens I kept a journal. In my 20s I wrote short stories and won a trip to Europe for one of them. Then I dabbled with YA when I became an English teacher, followed by picture books when I became a mum. All of my writing found a home in my bottom drawer; I was a bottom drawer publisher. I was too scared to send my stories out into the world; As I got older rejection scared me. In my 40s I started blogging. I still blog. When I turned 50 (I am 53) we moved to a new city (Sydney to Brisbane) I decided, with our fresh new life, that I would do what I have always wanted to do … become a published author. I am on this journey now. I am writing my first novel, I have planned a children’s chapter book, I still blog and I am doing a post graduate degree in creative writing. I attend workshops, I read prolifically and have joined writing groups. Sometimes I think I should’ve been more motivated and directed in my pursuit to be a writing in my 20s, 30s and 40s but on reflection I know that I am now highly motivated and driven because of the life experience I have gained along the way.
This is incredibly inspiring. So much respect for you!
What a great post. I have yet to come across one like it that discusses age and writing. I struggle with the fact that I just turned 50. I’m about three years into a new “age” of my writing, the first time I’ve taken it as seriously as this. In some ways, writing now is more difficult. My body is not the same, I tire more easily, I have aches and pains. However, age has brought to me some gifts as well. I know now that writing takes an extraordinary amount positive self-dialogue because we’re oftentimes working alone and don’t get kudos or rewards (at least if we’re still unpublished even still large gaps exist between publication and reviews). Also, writing can be demoralizing, especially in the review stage.
Between 18 and 32, I lacked the infrastructure internally to withstand the negative parts of writing and the writing world. I hardly knew who I was albeit I knew I loved writing. In order to determine your “right” genre, your “right” trajectory, you have to have established your “self.” While I think this is easier for people who come from stable backgrounds and childhoods in which their talents were supported and nurtured, many of us didn’t have that – I didn’t. My parents were too involved in their own problems. Through therapy and a long, loving relationship, I have built the kind of self-worth I didn’t have at a younger age. I could not be the writer I am now without that. That being said, there are many stories of conflicted young writers (Hemingway comes to mind but then again, he was a drinker) who were working writers in their 20s.
Thank you K.M. for your heartfelt insight. You are an inspiration.
So inspiring that you have “self-educated” yourself into a stable place despite the foundation of your childhood not being all it could have been.
Ages so true. Well into Stage 3, I find my living and writing has a confidence never before seen. Coule you call it, “Don’t give a damn?”. Possibly, except that my care for others is broad and my judgement limited. I have seen many varieties of peoples in their lives and stories, seen and lived their struggles with their demons, seen more dragons that you would imagine. Let’s hope this adds vividness to my stories. My readers think so.
“Could you call it, ‘Don’t give a damn?’ Possibly, except that my care for others is broad…”
This is it exactly! That balance between extremes.
At 61, I’m happy to be a member of K. M.’s geezer corp! Your article was great and I find it encouraging to read of other authors in my age range initiating writing careers. For my part, I’ve been hammering away at this for years and just coming to think that I may need to accept that it is a hobby rather than a retirement vocation.
Your article was another nice present, and I’m going to be a bit ungracious. I don’t think the three act set works for the real world. Our lives are too messy, with too many threads and too few actual end points. Every breath is an opportunity for a new inciting incident. Every conversation a potential complication with climaxes coming and going and resolution never really arriving.
Thanks again young lady for your thoughtfulness.
Thanks for chiming in. As with all archetypal perspectives, the Three Acts are literally true only in an abstract way. But I think we see the pattern play out, in an ever-expanding spiral, over and over throughout our lives.
So you’re putting the three act perspective together with a cyclical view, or at least those are the words I’m putting into your mouth. That’s an interesting perspective. A somewhat odd combination – I’m not sure whether to meditate on it or write a play!
Hi, Kate. Thank you for tackling this very relevant topic that never gets discussed. I have heard that people become less inhibited as they age. However, at age 70, I feel even more so. I am reluctant to write something that would cause pain to others. But that is what writing is all about: stir the pot and provoke the senses. It is where insight and transformation happen. Without friction, we stagnate. So, I struggle to give myself permission to write the tough words even as my writer friends and others offer powerful encouragement to get my words out there because the world needs them.
I believe that honesty only speaks to honesty. But we can’t expect others to find honesty within themselves in response to our work, if we’re not first willing to be honest in the writing.
Yes, honesty eclipses everything. I will remember honesty as I write rather than consequences and fallout. Thank you very much.
Hi, Kate. Thank you for tackling aging as writers which I have not seen elsewhere. I have heard that we become less inhibited with age. At age 70, I have become more so. I fear my words will cause pain to others. But that is the whole point of writing; stir the pot and distress the senses. Tension is where insight and transformation happen. I struggle to give myself permission to write the tough words, creating world’s worst case of writer’s block. My friends, writers and otherwise, strongly encourage me to get my words out there. The world needs them.
Here’s a quote I instinctively loved as a teen and which makes a little more sense to me with every passing year:
“I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little more as I grow older.”–Catherine Drinker Bowen
Reading this, I realize that at nearly 30, I’m starting to shift into my 2nd act of life. I’ll look at my earlier stuff and marvel at the veritable insanity that I penned, the lively explorations of creativity, and I look at my work now and wonder where that went. It was nice to read this post and realize that I’m not alone, and also that the shift isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Yes, I need to focus more on retaining that child’s creativity, but it’s not a bad thing to shift from writing solely for myself to writing for others.
I’ve been feeling burned out, and while part of it is that I’ve been keeping a breakneck pace in my work, I wonder if perhaps some of the aggravation I feel with myself is in that instinctive change of focus. Maybe now I’ll be able to flow with it a little better, and use it to make my writing better!
Haha. I totally relate to the “veritable insanity.” The bad part is I’ve published some of it. :p
Hi, Katie. This is certainly one of your very best posts. At first I thought, “Interesting, but certainly not me! At 70 years and 3 months and as yet unpublished, I’m different!”
But then I read all the comments and pondered a bit, and yeah, we all gotta add our individual “if’s and but’s” into our acts, but it’s true. Once again I’m an ordinary human.
I thoroughly enjoy your blog posts and books I’ve read. Your observations and thoughts are spot-on and well conveyed to the reader. Thanks for all.
Paul
“Once again I’m an ordinary human.”
Great–isn’t it? 😀
Hi, Katie that was really inspirational. I really liked your blog. I am also a writer and I am really inspired and all thanks to you.
Thanks for stopping by!
Well Katie, or KM, you know I have been intermittently struggling through the same manuscript for 6 or so years, due to illness and two lifesaving surgeries. With the first surgery, as a “cancer survivor,” I title I truly hated and didn’t want, I just typed my story straight into the laptop and then had to edit it a million times. Once the five years of hormonal treatment ended, I could get back to it, begin to finish it, and lo and behold once it was all behind me , I was. , like, oh, yes, I’m proud to be a cancer survivor. I had talked to my Dr. about it prior to ending treatment, and even he could not cheer me up. He said, “You loathe being a cancer survivor.” I suppose in my unconscious, it made me feel a tiny bit guilty.
But then when it was finished, I immediately had to have another surgery, where I have to have special diets, lost a ton of weight, and was in more pain than than I think I ever had. I put down the first manuscript again! But I outlined two more, and have an idea for a third that I haven’t dug into yet.
So why do I tell you this? because I went from 48 to 55. if I hadn’t been preoccupied by my writing, I don’t know how I would have gotten through it. In fact I still ask my self where those years went, but I know there was accomplishment and purpose. My dear husband had become a crutch for my illnesses. But now, I could, and still do, entertain him with my story ideas and with my heartfelt poems that I write, and he loves it, and gives me honest feedback. Also I like to entertain my mother in law with love poems and songs( yes, songs!) about her son. I have a much different life than if I’d just kept chugging along, going to work, playing with the pets.
I have you partly to thank for this, along with my Drs and family. I met my husband at 35. Life has gotten so much better, actually it’s better than ever. I appreciate everything. You might think this is funny, but retirement’s around the corner. And I still don’t know how I got here!!:)
This is such a great story. I knew bits and pieces from what you shared on Twitter, but I’m deeply inspired to hear how writing pulled you through during your difficult years.
Hi! I’m Staci Ana’s younger sister that she called little. Yeah, I guess she inspired me to write my own story but… Okay, I’ll be completely honest, yes she did. She’s one of my biggest role models. I’m also one of her BIGGEST fans (and probably the only one so far). I wonder why she hasn’t given me anymore chapters…
And she’ll probably look at this comment and say, “AHHHH!! She commented??”. Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you, Katie, because your blog/website has helped my sister a lot with her writing (its gotten a lot better since she follows your blog and podcasts).
And please keep on posting more helping tips because it helps her a lot!
~Vicky
PS. I love you, Staci. Don’t get mad at me if you see this comment!
Haha. This made me smile. 🙂 Welcome, Vicky!
🙂
AHHHH! She commented??
Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. Ahem. Now back to my serious self.
Thanks, Vicky. I’m glad to know that you consider me your role model. (I’ve known you for my whole life –you don’t think I know that?)
Don’t worry. I’m not mad at you. You do know that you can talk to me any time since we live in the same house… right?? And you only have to turn around on your chair to see what I’m doing on the computer. XD Oh well. Little sisters…
Just kidding. I’m glad that you found this website -it’s awesome! I love you and wish you the best on your writing journey(s), if only you could focus on ONE project at a time… XD
K.M., it made me smile too, along with my jaw dropping wide open. I did not see this coming…
I’m in the second act, but I still have the first act yearning for transformation, especially now that my children are in college and I’m experiencing a transformation in our household. Things are changing all the time. I feel like I’m at a serious crossroads for the first time since my early 20s. I think it’s something to pay attention to in each age – where our crossroad moments are.
Absolutely. Really well stated too. I’ve found that ages that end in 4 seem significant for me–14, 24, and 34 were all watershed years. I’m definitely turned in to see what 44 will bring!
This is a fascinating topic I know nothing about but why should I let that stop me from weighing in? I think the first act can be characterized as ignorant exuberance: we don’t know what we don’t know and thus are free to do anything. The Sound and The Fury is a great example of a first act novel. Infinite Jest, with its infinite footnotes would be another.
The second act brings a measure of mastery of the form (at least as much as we will likely have) married with a nuanced daring: the author understands what they want to achieve and how to do it. Macbeth or Hamlet are Second Act works.
The final act I’d say is where we measure ourselves against ourselves. We would be less likely to write just anything- it has to stack up to the past and be meaningful to boot. Death Comes For the Archbishop is a fine example of a Third Act novel.
Thanks for exploring an under explored topic!
“This is a fascinating topic I know nothing about but why should I let that stop me from weighing in?”
Haha. Exactly what I thought. :p
And great examples.
Now well into my third act, I relish the freedom I have to write what I want, to the length I want and to the audience I want. My second act was for clients, their agenda, their broadcast deadlines, their opinions. The first act? Well that was live broadcast material which called for limited inagination. The downside to the third act is, the decreasing time. I question the following. Can I get it all written before they hand me the laptop in the sky (or down below)? Why am I beating myself up setting impossible deadlines instead of relaxing in the sun? Why am I frenetically learning how to market books? Why am I such a perfectionist? Even I don’t know the answers.
I’m so glad I read this post! I started a novel about (urk!) 20 years ago and worked on it now and then, but then it sat in bits and pieces for years. Last NaNo I got most a first draft out. Now I’m having a lot of trouble wanting to work on it and couldn’t figure out why. Then I read what you wrote in this post:
” We have to reconnect with the inner child, with the deep motivations that brought us to writing in the first place.”
I thought back to what made writing so fun way back when. What brought me to the keyboard day after day. How did I lose sight of that? I got so caught up in the “how to” that the “why to” disappeared. I think I need to take a break from the rule books and just enjoy the story for now. A diagram of what goes where, structure-wise, will suffice for now. I can fix the rest later.
You have been so helpful to me. I read all your blogs and have learned more from you than anyone else.
A big cyber hug to you!
I’m having a serious case of deja vu. It seems as if I have read this post before and I thought I had responded to it… but I don’t see my name on any of the posts and I probably didn’t even read them before because the ones that caught my attention, that I read, didn’t seem familiar.
I think you have captured that that third act very well even though you haven’t been there yet. I’m 77 and consider myself still a kid. Sometimes that’s a good thing. I, too, started writing somewhere around the age of 12. And, yes, it was far easier to write then, just the joy of doing it, sitting alone off in some corner of the house where, usually, no one would bother me. That was in the pen and paper days. When I was in the military I bought a typewriter in the BX thinking that would allow me to write faster. That was partly true but I never learned to type very well so I had a lot of mistakes. I was trying to write short stories for publication and even sent a few of them to magazines. But lots of unexpected things happened and I stopped writing for a long time while I was tending to my children as a single parent. My second act wasn’t very productive.
You would think that it would easier now, being retired and all of my kids (I remarried) are now off on their own and able to take care of themselves (mostly). My most productive time recently has come from a short story that I wrote, probably more than 50 years ago. It was all typed up, formatted to be sent to a magazine but I never did. I can’t remember now, how tedious it was to type that up so that everything would be perfect. I do remember making typo mistakes and throwing away pages and typing them again… on several occasions. After reading it I determined that it would need a drastic rewrite. It has become a novel in the process. An excerpt of the story was published in the current anthology of the writer’s club I belong to. I’ve received a lot of encouragement and constructive criticism but, since the pandemic has hit I must write from home and have not accomplished much. Somehow I do better writing in a coffee shop. The pandemic doesn’t seem to be getting any better so I’d better start learning how to write from home so I can get this finished. I do want to publish a novel in my lifetime and, yes, one does begin to feel that they are running out of time.
I’m still only half through my fist act, but I know you hit that one right on the head for me, so good job!