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When to start a writing career? The second best time is now (#IWSG)

January 5, 2022 /

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

Chinese proverb

This post is part of the Insecure Writers Support Group monthly blog hop, co-hosted this month by Erika Beebe, Olga Godim, Sandra Cox, Sarah Foster, and Chemist Ken. This month’s optional question is: What’s the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Were you able to overcome it?

Before I get to this month’s question, I want to share some exciting news with my IWSG friends (and anyone else who missed my announcement last week): I’ve published another short story! It’s a Christmas horror story, published in this year’s Deathlehem anthology, The Colour out of Deathlehem. See the announcement at the top of my blog for details.

Now that the shameless self-promotion is out of the way, let’s get on to this month’s IWSG post:

What’s the one thing I regret most about my writing career? That’s easy. I regret that I started my writing career so late. I’ve told the story before (in my very first IWSG post) about how a high school English teacher assigned us to write a short story without teaching us anything about writing fiction and how I assumed from that experience that I had no talent. But I can’t blame that teacher for my illogical belief that one high school assignment should determine my fate as a writer. I majored in English. I could have put aside concerns about my GPA and taken a creative writing class as part of my degree program. I could have read some books about fiction writing when I was in my 20s and 30s and teaching myself other skills. I could have, could have, could have.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I clung stubbornly to the idea that writers were born, not made, and I didn’t have the required talent. Reader, I clung to that idea for 30 years after the high school short story assignment.

30 effing years.

I didn’t start trying to write fiction till I was 47.

Don’t be me.

If you have a dream, go for it, even if you think you can’t do it. Don’t let other people or a single bad experience deter your dreams. Try. Just try.

Anyway.

Since time travel doesn’t exist outside of fiction (including some of my fiction), I have only 2 options: 1) decide it’s too late to build a writing career, I’m too old, so why bother, or 2) do it and make the most of the years I have left. Spoiler alert: I chose (and continue to choose) option 2.

Some days the regret really gets to me. I could have 20 or 30 years of experience as a writer. I could have (maybe) built a writing career and even supported myself and my family as a writer. Every time I read about how lots of successful authors labored for 10 or 15 or 20 years before getting a novel published, the regret twists in my gut like a bad burrito. I’m 54 years old. I don’t have that kind of time.

But then I come back to those 2 options. Give up or do it now. I think about how I’d feel if I gave up. Really think about it. Let myself feel the disappointment, the regret.

Then I pick up my manuscript and get back to work.

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