Old Guys writer support thread

[guest14]

What are you writing now, compared to what you wrote years, or decades ago?

For me, at 66 next month life was very different in many-varied ways over four decades of adult(ish) life. I simply had no time to write. Then four years ago I suddenly did. I had played with a few novels in my younger years. I still have the first chapter of 'Ifnaw the Squit' that I began over 20 years ago. Another writing fragment about a sword in a time reminiscent of 'Stormbringer' and otherwise pithy morsels. Where I came from writing was never considered a job and no publisher would touch you unless you had serious potential.

As for writing what's in my head today. Geez! If I only could I would be an NYT bestseller.

Now, as Americans seem intent on tearing each other apart, the world is in chaos, and we could be nuked at any moment,

There never was a time when it was different. In reality, it's like the frog and the scorpion - it's the nature of things.

[idontknowyet]

I am very offended that us old ladies were excluded!!  :angry: Oh wait, I'm not old yet. I'm going to have to find something else to be offended about. 
 

[Maggie Ann]

I am very offended that us old ladies were excluded!!  :angry: Oh wait, I'm not old yet. I'm going to have to find something else to be offended about. 

I was going to be offended but you beat me to it. But since you're not old yet and I am, I'll pick up the baton.  :evil: Offended, but not so much that I won't jump in any way.

I wrote my first book in my 50s, I think. It was histrom. In my 60s, I started writing contemprom and a few historical mysteries. Now in my hem-hem years, I'm back to histrom and really enjoying it.

[DrewMcGunn]

Thanks Llano for sharing. When I was in my twenties, I recall rummaging through Larry McMurtry's old book store on main street in Archer City. I found a rare book or two in there. I don't recall the angst of my twenties... but then again, it's all a bit hazy. 


I feel privileged to have made it to the sweet spot of my forties and discover I have a voice for storytelling.


The stories I started when I was younger were inane. Well, those that I can remember through the haze. My current series is, in some ways, a shelter against today's vitriol. It's a look back at our country's history told through a modern lens at times and at other times through the lens of the past. One of my biggest complaints at our views today is that we're so quick to tear down things in the past because it doesn't fit neatly into our narrow worldviews we don't take time to understand why the world was the way it was. I'm probably like the little dutch boy with his finger in the dike, but I'd like to think there's a market for people who want to understand our past, in all its glorious failings and successes.

[elleoco]

Since this is a public thread, let's just say I'm past SS age. If 40's were most productive, maybe that explains my slow pace, since I skipped right over those years and didn't start till the decade after that and didn't publish till I found out about KDP in the decade after that. If 40's are "best," at least I'll never know what I missed.


The big difference I notice is a desire for more realism and less Pollyanna. I had that to start with and can remember when I wrote the first romance thinking I wanted it to be more realistic and yet keep within the genre expectations. Reviewers often refer to my books as "gritty," which surprised me at first, but maybe they are.


The thing is I want to go more that way as time passes, and there's a limit to how much of that you can do and not put readers off. I think sometimes of doing straight, "real" Westerns, but there just isn't as much market for them. I need the money my books earn and am not speedy enough to do both.

[Doglover]

I am very offended that us old ladies were excluded!!  :angry: Oh wait, I'm not old yet. I'm going to have to find something else to be offended about. 

I distinctly remember, decades ago, young women referring to other young women as "you guys."

I also remember an interview with Lauren Hutton where she referred to herself as "just a regular guy."

So "old guys" is omnisexual, or metrosexual, or gender nonbinary, or whatever the PC term is today.

But since you brought it up, are there gender differences? Do old ladies write differently, relative to young ladies, than do old men, relative to young men?

I've been reading a lot of old-lady literary fiction lately, and I like it.

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. 


My cousin, 76 years young, told me on the phone that she couldn't stop, because she was doing a can can concert for the old folks. Sadly, she died just a couple of months later. I intend to go on for at least another twenty years.

[Post-Crisis D]

I intend to go on for at least another twenty years.

Then we're going to expect to keep hearing from you for the next twenty years.  👍

Remember, at the end of the day, always leave something unfinished so you'll always have a reason to get up the next morning.

[Doglover]

I intend to go on for at least another twenty years.

Then we're going to expect to keep hearing from you for the next twenty years.  👍

Remember, at the end of the day, always leave something unfinished so you'll always have a reason to get up the next morning.

I'll always have a reason - the desperate need for a wee. 

[Authoress]

I guess I fit in here as well, being old-ish (64)  :icon_wink:

Nice to find 2 places I belong, undiscoverable & old, now there's a duo to aspire to, not! 

[WasAnn]

I've just entered my 50s and perhaps because I don't look it, I'm finding very little difference between any other year and this one. I was a military officer and scientist for my whole career and never even thought about writing till my mid-forties, so I suppose I missed all of it. I only know that there's no way I could write what I do if I'd started in my twenties. There was simply not enough life and experience behind me to get the nuances. Even though I was in the process of experiencing those things at the time, I wouldn't have been able to write about them the way I do. It takes years and sometimes decades to process it into a usable and relate-able thing.

[idontknowyet]

I've just entered my 50s

Lies! Lies I tell you! Lies! You don't look a day over 28! 

[Post-Crisis D]

I've just entered my 50s

Lies! Lies I tell you! Lies! You don't look a day over 28! 

I think she's lying too, but I don't think we're allowed to comment on how people look anymore.

[Post-Crisis D]

And to answer the question, I'm still trying to finish stories I started in high school and grade school.  I guess that makes me an outlier.  When I'm like 100, I'll probably be trying to finish stories I started in my twenties.

So stages don't matter.  Age is just a number.  Always leave something unfinished so you have a reason to wake up every day.  Be kind, rewind.

[WasAnn]

I've just entered my 50s

Lies! Lies I tell you! Lies! You don't look a day over 28! 

I think she's lying too, but I don't think we're allowed to comment on how people look anymore.

LOL...thank you both! Made my day!

[Kate Elizabeth]

As a kid, I wrote fantasy and children's stories, plus fanfiction (although I didn't realize that's what it was).
In my 20s and 30s , I wrote fantasy with romantic elements, children's stories, and romance, with a little sci fi thrown in.  Oh, and there was a time I considered myself a serious literary writer, but I decided that I enjoyed writing genre better.

Now that I'm 45, I'd like to eventually just write fantasy with romantic elements, maybe for junior or YA.  I'm still working on romance, though, plus my different odds and ends.

[Alice Sabo]

I find myself side-stepping the scary stuff. I'm such a wimp I can't even watch the grimmer mystery shows. I had to stop watching Criminal Minds because it was too gruesome. As soon as the blurb mentions drugs, gang or the mob, I skip it. Of course, I grew up in NJ, so mob stories are not at all entertaining to me.


In my writing, I find myself going for lost civilizations and rebuilding.

[cecilia_writer]

I find myself side-stepping the scary stuff. I'm such a wimp I can't even watch the grimmer mystery shows. I had to stop watching Criminal Minds because it was too gruesome. As soon as the blurb mentions drugs, gang or the mob, I skip it. Of course, I grew up in NJ, so mob stories are not at all entertaining to me.


In my writing, I find myself going for lost civilizations and rebuilding.

I am just the same (apart from writing about lost civilisations, that is - I can still write mysteries but they have never been all that violent)  I've gradually become more and more averse to reading or watching anything gruesome or even suspenseful, and some days I can't even watch the news because it's too frightening.

[Rosie Scott]

As a child I wrote horror, tragedy, and adventure novels. As a teen, I wrote some weird mix of romance and erotica with odd storylines (detailing affairs or other taboos) and hardcore naughty scenes. As an adult (20s and 30s), I write dystopian, fantasy, and sci-fi novels with a focus on bloody large-scale warfare and conquest.

I have a while yet to see where I go from here, but I'm not sure if the change in genres is age related or not. I've always had a love of tragedy in storytelling, detailed violence/gore, and putting my characters tough situations that would cause many real people to lose their minds. That detail hasn't changed about my writing since I was a kid. I'm really impressed with what I managed to pull off in the horror books I wrote in elementary school (I read them now and think, "what was wrong with me?" Ha!). What I write tends to correlate with my mindset and lifestyle at the time, I think. I'm usually an annoyingly happy person, so I'm intrigued by misfortune and violence and love to write it. As for the romance/erotica as a teen, that was probably just because my drive was through the roof and I wasn't getting any, hence why it stopped once I met my husband.  :evil:

[katc]

If there are stages, could it be that I'm going backwards? LOL. I started out writing serious and emotional personal essays, then switched to romance and here I am neck deep in middle grade fiction.

[Edward M. Grant]

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. 

There are a bunch of anti-ageing treatments in clinical trials right now, and we're closing in on the root causes of ageing itself. One of the researchers said a little while ago that his father has been using some of the drugs for a few years and just took up mountain climbing in his late 70s.

Personally, I've gone from writing hard SF to horror and now heading into military SF and thrillers. A few years back I found a school notebook from what I was ten and the stories in there show I should have been a natural for action-adventure/thriller writing.

[She-la-te-da]

I'm pretty much writing the same stuff I have since I was a kid, SF mostly, with some horror thrown in, and getting more interested in the supernatural stuff. I've got ideas for just about any genre you can name, though, which I trace to my natural curiosity and wide reading interests from about age six.

In my twenties, I was an USAF person, a mother and wife. No time for angst. In my thirties, I was working myself to death to keep myself and three kids going. Same for my forties and fifties. No time for anything else, even writing. I'd get some words in here or there, and I managed to read a lot, but it was all about motherhood and working. Now, I'm just past sixty, and I finally have time to write. All I have to do is live forever, and I've got it made!

[CoraBuhlert]

I still have a couple of very old (20+ years) stories kicking around that I wrote in my late teens and early twenties. Some of them were published in the literary magazine of my university or other small press magazines that paid only in contributor copies.

When I started my indie publishing journey in my late thirties, I took stock of my inventory and dug up all my previously published stories as well as finished stories that were never published to see what was viable to be republished. Much of it will never see the light of day again, because it was just so bad like the interracial romance set in 1960s Mississippi, which tries to make a very serious point about racism - oh dear, what was I thinking? 

A few stories, however, turned out to be still viable, because there were good ideas in there, even if they needed heavy rewrites. I eventually did the edits and indie published. I think the oldest story I have out there was written when I was nineteen, though it has gone through several drafts since then. I also have one I wrote when I was twenty and a couple of others from the same period. There perfectly fine stories, otherwise I would never have republished them. They're also obviously the work of someone who was very young.

Interestingly, my choice of genres hasn't much changed. I wrote primarily science fiction, fantasy and crime fiction back then with the occasional foray into romance and historical fiction and I still write the same genres now.