LATE GREAT LITERARY CAREERS
By
Delma Luben

If you are late starting on your writing career, whatever your age,don't think it's too late. Later can be better for a writer.

There is power in a creative restlessness that has been brewing for years. That fallow time was preparing you. And if you dare to leave the comfort of your accumulated knowledge to strike out as an amateur (for another level of development) you have all it takes.

Aging doesn't automatically drain brainpower; even at 90 creativity doesn't necessarily ice over. It depends on the health and the will of the individual. And according to AARP Magazine, mentally active people show the slowest rates of decline as they age.

At 73, the late writer, composer, comedian, philosopher, Steve Allen (after 45 books, and 42 albums) said in an interview that he felt more creative than ever..."Obviously," I couldn't run the 100 meter dash today; but the creativity is still there; creative people never retire."

But they may often doubt.

In one of my writing classes for seniors a retired teacher who had shelved her desire to write for thirty years, suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, there's so much I don't know, and I have so little time left!"

TIME OUT. The rest of the session we talked about the advantages of a late writing career. There are many.

Consider: unless the desire dies, older translates to greater potential. After years of straining toward understanding, nature has filled in most of the general knowledge gaps; you've seen almost everything, and experienced every emotion. And most of you have learned time management-- which is a definite plus for a writer. All this collective-living education easily counter-balances youth and a degree.

Time tips the scale in your favor.

As a senior you are capable, confident, seasoned, and in control. Those waiting years have transported you to the golden hour of vision-- which is said to commence after fifty-- the youth of old age. It is in this second youth, loaded with experience-- and long suppressed desire, that we make the most progress. With myriad yesterdays to draw from we can't help but learn faster. The more sand dropped through the hour glass, the better we see, is a documented fact.

Research proves that mature beginners publish sooner-- and many have reached distinction.

So, if you have passed the prime of your life, having relegated your dream of a writing career to the back burned for maybe half a century, waste no more time lamenting, Grab your belated opportunity and go! The light has finally turned green.

And consider yourself lucky. With age, a singer looses his voice; a ball player loses his arm control; those in business face age discrimination... But for a writer older is better in more ways than it is worse. Your mind is fully primed-- and editors don't need to know how old you are.

Read biography and you'll discover that most of the word's great writers, the ones you would like to emulate, were late beginners. They proved that there is no cut-off time for creativity.

Fall is the writer's season-- a late, great literary career is possible.