by Pamela Ebel
“People should be interested in books, not their authors!”—Agatha Christie
In August of last year, I was one of five speakers, one man and four women, on the panel Writing as a Second Career at a national writing conference. Looking out at our audience I saw thirteen women and no men. This picture stayed in my mind and became one of the impetuses for this article.
The panel moderator indicated that the issue of changing careers later in life would be addressed. She noted, statistically, the number of women pursuing writing as a second career at fifty or older increased dramatically during the COVID pandemic. Further, it appears that agents, editors, and publishers are more receptive to fiction works by older women. Some comments indicated we might be perceived as a “marginalized group.” An observation not lost on those of us “of a certain age.”
As the last speaker I listened to the other four share their writing journeys after fifty. They had disparate career backgrounds and all said they’d written since childhood.
When my turn came I asked how many in the audience had, were, or planned to write a novel? All hands went up. A quick poll of their ages indicated all were over fifty, with several in their sixties. They all recently left professions or juggled between those and their journeys to writing as a fulltime profession.
They wanted to know how to make a living writing fulltime and how to find and get an agent or publisher to listen to their pitch. What they didn’t ask seemed more telling: What does someone entering the writing life need to know before launching into the manuscript of that Great American Novel?
For most this writing conference was their first, and few belonged to local or national writing groups. The facts and fictions of writing as a profession weren’t on their minds. What became clear were the hopes of fame and fortune: getting a traditional publishing contract with a large advance, winning awards, the excitement of showing up on The New York Times bestseller list, getting an option offer from a film company—all the brass rings we’re told are a must to be successful. What wasn’t on their minds was the realization that to get all those things, one needs to understand, at the heart of it, writing is a business like any other. That means we have to approach it like any other job or profession.
I’ve written fiction for fifteen years and participated in and created conferences and skills classes for writers when I retired from my fourth career in 2019 at the age of seventy-two. Still I didn’t know how to begin to write professionally. For women starting writing careers at fifty or older, the first challenge is to create a new persona they feel comfortable sharing with family, friends, and others in their new profession.
While everyone will approach this issue differently, we need to make it clear we’re not staying home eating bonbons and watching soap operas every day. Nor are we not working when we lunch with other writers, male or female.
In my hometown of New Orleans, the three-martini lunch (much maligned in recent years) made many men wealthy and still provides great fodder for stories told from the female perspective.
Each of the many professions we engaged in previously had rules and skills we needed in order to succeed. Our writing journeys are no different. Any woman fifty or older who has pitched to an agent or representative of a publisher in the past few years finds herself sitting across from a man or woman twenty to thirty years younger. The challenge, if you are not writing in the voice and world of that younger person, is to find a way to bridge the divide. When submitting directly to anthologies, magazines, zines, and smaller presses, the same challenge is present.
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”—W. Somerset Maugham
To meet these challenges, we need to be clear about our goals for writing and learn the skills, tools, and rules that are the ingredients for success. Let’s see if we can find some of those lost rules.
- What are the current marketplace trends for publication of fiction works in traditional, hybrid, and self-publishing platforms, including the statistics concerning publication by older women writers?
- What genres are most popular currently? Do we write or wish to write those and do we understand the expectations of the editors and agents we plan to submit those works to?
- What submission requirements do the various publishers use and do we understand them? I didn’t know what the Shunn Format was when I started submitting stories directly. During four recent presentations on writing and marketing short stories, the majority of the audiences didn’t know either. Failure to use it may lead to a rejection.
- What professional organizations, writing groups, and for-profit writing courses are available to assist in honing our writing skills and which ones are right for us?
- What budget can we afford to set for acquiring the proper hardware, software, supplies, in-person or virtual educational opportunities, professional services costs, travel, etc.?
Finally, I want to share some advice I learned during my other four careers that I use in my writing journey at seventy-seven. I hope you will find it helpful.
Avoid the One Right Answer
Most of our educational experiences teach us to look for the one right answer. Unfortunately, this doesn’t account for the fact that life is ambiguous and frequently awash with “many right answers” or “no right answers.” Before setting career goals in stone, ask two questions: What do I want on my tombstone? What do I want to leave to those I love, to those I respect, and to the world I will leave behind? The answer to these questions will start us on our journey with large goals defined.
Goal Orientation
To make long-term goals achievable, write them down. When we see those goals memorialized in black and white, we begin to consider their validity to the world we wish for ourselves. A hard copy of the goals makes a statement that this is the reality we strive for and the road map that helps us recognize the difference between career intersections and crossroads.
Tweak the Goals Road Map
Once we’ve fleshed out the goals, we need to engage in a constant reexamination as our manuscripts make their way into consideration for acceptance, requests for edits, or rejections. The publishing world is in a constant state of flux, and we need to develop situational awareness to see what impact time and events, both professional and personal, have had on our goals plan.
Oh! One more rule to keep in mind:
“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time or tools to write. Simple as that.”—Stephen King
Pamela Ebel has been published in Shotgun Honey, Yellow Mama, Kings River Life Magazine, the BOULD Awards 2020 and 2021 anthology, Tomorrow and Tomorrow 2021 anthology, and other venues. Her poetry appeared in the Delta Poetry Review. A native of California, she now concentrates on tales from her original home state and tales from the highways of the South. She also knows, like the Ancient Greeks and the Irish, that you can’t outrun your blood as a Southern writer. As of 2020 she has turned to writing fulltime—obviously either perfect or bizarre timing—and this will be her fifth career. She lives in Metairie, Louisiana, with her husband and two cats.
