
‘Emerging’ as a Writer After 40 - elorant
https://longreads.com/2018/11/28/emerging-as-a-writer-after-40/
======
ilovecaching
I gave up on my dream of being a fantasy writer in the middle of undergrad. It
was a "great" decision in that computer science became something I was equally
passionate about and has been extremely lucrative, but halfway through me
twenties, I'm trying to write on the side in order to avoid the late in life
regret I'll feel if I don't make an attempt at publishing something.

What's sad is that I would have to be an international best seller to make
more than I do as a software engineer, even if I published regularly; writing
would not pay my bay area mortgage, and I'd lose out on tons of perks at work.

Trapped in the gilded cage.

~~~
akulbe
Self-publish your stuff. You have nothing in your way. The only thing stopping
you, in this case, is you.

Don't try to be an international bestseller. Just find a smaller group of true
fans.

See: Kevin Kelly

See: Seth Godin <\-- where I get much of my inspiration. He's REALLY good.

Oh yeah... don't stop coding. Keep your day job. Write on the side. Fund your
dream. ;)

~~~
ilovecaching
Thanks for the advice! I think there is a stigma against self publishing, but
it’s probably he smarter choice in the kindle age.

~~~
kawera
The stigma exists for printed books but is much lesser for ebooks.

------
jaysonelliot
Kurt Vonnegut once said that no one should start writing _before_ the age of
40.

Given the dire economic prospects of writing as a career, it seems to make a
lot of sense to wait until later in life to begin writing professionally. It
gives you time to build some kind of financial stability first, and to have
lived long enough to have more experience, and perspective as an author.

~~~
zeroego
>Kurt Vonnegut once said that no one should start writing before the age of
40.

Do you by any chance have a source for that quote? Vonnegut has so many great
quotes, but I couldn't find the one you mentioned.

~~~
roymurdock
I don't have the Vonnegut quote and don't remember him saying this in his semi
autobiographical _A Man Without A Country_ (he wrote his first novel at 30),
but here's a Bertrand Russel quote on the subject:

“To all the talented young men who wander about feeling that there is nothing
in the world for them to do, I should say: 'Give up trying to write, and,
instead, try not to write. Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in
Borneo, a labourer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the
satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy almost all your
energies.' I do not recommend this course of action to everyone, but only to
those who suffer from the disease which Mr Krutch diagnoses. I believe that,
after some years of such an existence, the ex-intellectual will find that in
spite of is efforts he can no longer refrain from writing, and when this time
comes his writing will not seem to him futile.”

from _The Conquest of Happiness_

~~~
hnuser355
All of those seem like they’re actually much worse career choices than being a
writer. Why would he recommend people to do this? Is it a joke

Reminds me of some weirdo bodybuilder on YouTube who advised a viewer
suffering from depression to become a mercenary in Africa to cure it

~~~
roymurdock
read the whole thing in context and it might make more sense...basically he's
saying don't be a self absorbed a hole and go out into the world and do things

~~~
mikekchar
Just to give the context, OCR text of the book:
[https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.222834/2015.222...](https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.222834/2015.222834.The-
Conquest_djvu.txt)

Search for "talented".

This is such a great quote I had to read it in some context and although I've
only read a few pages around the quote it seems that he is talking about
tragedy and specifically the idea of how one escapes from essentially being a
nobody in the world.

"...the death of Cinna the poet is comic, whereas the deaths of Cesar, Brutus
and Cassius are tragic." (Speaking of the works of Shakespeare). The idea is
that our concept of tragedy is bound up with the consequence to society rather
than the consequence to an individual. So if you die having accomplished
nothing of note, we feel that we have wasted our time -- no tragedy has
resulted from our death.

From that perspective, I think he's trying to say that instead of writing
because you want to make a mark, you should try to avoid writing. That desire
to do something notable will cause you to ultimately feel as though you have
failed -- we can never overcome our own ambitions. But if you go to extreme
lengths to avoid writing _and fail to succeed_ , then your writing will never
seem (to you) to be a waste of time. It will be of great importance (if only
to you).

------
goodroot
Technical writing! Are you an engineer? Do you love writing? Want to work in
an environment that is far less stressful, but just as intellectually
stimulating? You get to write neat articles, create helpful documentation. You
are the first one to play with nifty features. Heck, keep writing small
features if you want, or internal tools. You can have a big influence on
inter-team communication.

It is the best choice I have ever made. I get to make great money, polish my
writing and engineering craft, and day dream about my future fictions. In
another 10 years, perhaps I shall pivot to fantasy. If not, I can point to
dozens and dozens of popular, educational articles which people have enjoyed.
And that will be enough for me.

~~~
colvasaur
I'm at a transition point in my career and have been really thinking about
doing this. Salary and career trajectory are my primary concerns. Do you feel
comfortable with your pay and future opportunities? The only portfolio I have
is documentation for my GitHub projects. Any advice on building it up if
necessary?

~~~
hobls
What I've seen is that the salary is dramatically lower, and as you noted, the
opportunities to advance into management are more more difficult to obtain.
(My wife spent time as a technical writer. I work in software engineering.)

~~~
goodroot
Not dramatically; both conditions are very dependent on organization.

~~~
hobls
Yeah? I'm seeing a lot of SDE roles in the $250k+/yr range, and I've never
seen tech writing anywhere near there.

------
overcast
Roald Dahl wrote James and the Giant peach when he was 45, and the rest is
history.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl_bibliography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl_bibliography)

~~~
DisruptiveDave
Which is almost 20 years after he began writing (according to your link). The
point is, he didn't start writing at 45. Not that you're implying that, but I
see plenty of pieces about people making it big when they're older, but those
same pieces fail to shine as bright a light on the years and years of toiling
and craft-honing that led the person to that moment.

------
jessaustin
TFA is the most extreme example I've seen recently of the sort of piece that
inspires absolutely no comments on HN whatsoever, while its title inspires
lively discussion of largely unrelated topics.

This is deeply personal work, by a person whose life experience largely does
not intersect with those of HN commentators. I suppose I shouldn't have been
surprised.

~~~
deytempo
If there can exist a comment about there being no comments, then there is no
such thing as no comments

~~~
jessaustin
Haha, even this thread is more about the state of HN commenting than it is
about TFA.

------
Isamu
So awesome to hear about making challenging career changes later in life. I
think people can get a bit too settled and may believe that it's impossible to
change.

All the talk about identity in this piece makes me think that is what makes it
harder to shift careers: if you make what you do a part of your identity, then
changing what you do can become harder because you are changing who you are.

Personally, I really don't think my career defines me in any way. My career is
like a furniture for my life, and I like it to be useful and not too
uncomfortable, but someday I may put it out on the curb and redecorate.

~~~
marmot777
Career change is definitely possible. I’ve done it. I think it takes time and
that The key is to not rush it. Make the transition one step at a time, while
trying to think ahead, like a chess match.

------
danso
Most writers who are successfully published later in life seem to have been
working at it for years/decades prior. Richard Adams, who published "Watership
Down" in his 50s, may be the closest thing to a successful "newbie" who
emerged later in life:

> _Adams was 52 and working for the civil service when his daughters began
> pleading with him to tell them a story on the drive to school. “I had been
> put on the spot and I started off, ‘Once there were two rabbits called Hazel
> and Fiver.’ And I just took it on from there.” Extraordinarily, he had never
> written a word of fiction before, but once he’d seen the story through to
> the end, his daughters said it was “too good to waste, Daddy, you ought to
> write that down”._

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/04/richard-
adams-...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/04/richard-adams-
watership-down-interview)

~~~
jeffwass
Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels, published his first novel at age
43, which he only started writing after being laid off as a television
producer.

------
sriram_sun
This quote FTA: “Now I become myself. It’s taken time, many years and places.”

― May Sarton

------
Kurtz79
Andy Weir comes to mind:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Weir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Weir)

~~~
oh_sigh
> Weir began writing science fiction in his twenties and published work on his
> website for years. He also authored a humour web comic called Casey and
> Andy[NB 1] featuring fictionalized "mad scientist" versions of himself and
> his friends (such as writer Jennifer Brozek) from 2001 to 2008; he also
> briefly worked on another comic called Cheshire Crossing bridging Alice in
> Wonderland, Peter Pan and The Wizard of Oz.[10] The attention these gained
> him has been attributed as later helping launch his writing career,[11]
> following the failure to publish his first novel attempt called Theft of
> Pride. His first work to gain significant attention was "The Egg", a short
> story that has been adapted into a number of YouTube videos, a one-act play,
> and is the overarching concept of Everybody, the third album by American
> rapper Logic.

~~~
Kurtz79
...so?

It's exactly the same case as the article:

"What I wanted was to write full-time. Or, rather, I wanted writing to be my
main mode of being in and engaging with the world. But I hadn’t simply
awakened one morning and decided this. Up until that point, I had been writing
part-time for some-30 years, snatching what time I could during weekends and
vacation. I had accumulated a modest publication history: a national award for
a short story at age 10; a short story and a poem in a children’s print
magazine at age 14; two short stories and five literary essays in an online
magazine by age 29; an essay in a print anthology at age 30. From my mid-20s
to my mid-30s, I had also worked on my craft through several writing courses
and workshops at a couple of well-known Midwestern universities and one
semester at a low-residency MFA before assorted factors led to my dropping
out."

------
glup
Kant started publishing on philosophy at the age of 38. I suspect this is
older than 40 terms of 18th century life expectancy.

~~~
aleksei
There is no such thing as >40 terms of 18th century life expectancy.

What a ridiculous notion.

~~~
jessaustin
There wasn't an entire "boom" generation of banal revolutionary-in-their-minds
people in their 50s and 60s hanging around gumming up the works and doing
their damnedest to prevent any progress whatsoever. So in that sense life was
different for 38- and 40yo people than it is now.

~~~
aleksei
Can you please specify how life is different? I feel lucky not to have
noticed.

~~~
jessaustin
No one alive now would have noticed. We are comparing the life expectancies of
the present day to those of 1762. At 38, Kant would have already outlived most
of his contemporaries.

~~~
kens
People in the 1700's didn't all die in their thirties. Kant lived to 79. As
for contemporary philosophers, Leibniz lived to 70, Hume to 65, Rousseau to
66, Adam Smith 67 and Voltaire 83. Average life expectancy was pulled down by
infant mortality, but plenty of people lived long lives.

~~~
jessaustin
Sure, but their population pyramid was a lot more pyramidal than ours is.

------
bilboobs
I'm 41, and I get the urge to jump off of a bridge any time I think of
learning something new/challenging.

------
sjg007
I think to become a good writer you probably have to read a lot, be observant
and then write a lot.

~~~
jeffwass
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a
lot and write a lot. ... If you don't have the time to read, you don't have
the time (or the tools) to write.”

\- Stephen King, _On Writing_

Btw, if anybody here is considering creative writing, I HIGHLY recommend
reading this book.

------
billfruit
I thought many great writers started writing after 40, Trollope, Montaigne..

~~~
cafard
Trollope was in his mid-30s when he first published a novel, though one could
say that he hit his stride after 40. Quite a few writers have done their best
work in middle age or later, you are correct.

------
marmot777
Speaking for myself, the idea of “emerging as a writer” sounds appealing.

------
janeybrad
Still got a bit to learn though, so many adjectives in the first few
sentences, felt very 'writery'. A good editor and she'll be on track!

------
brm
Wiped my comment because it was too late too delete. I shouldn't have passed
any judgement on this woman at all. I don't need to have an opinion on the
internet.

~~~
Deinos
Agreed, and increased connectivity and social media has only exacerbated the
problem. People are all too eager to spend too much time measuring themselves
against others instead of putting that effort toward introspection and
improvement.

~~~
marmot777
I hesrd a good discussion on Joe Rogan about how distance (physical and
figurative) enables people to do things that would normally make them feel
horrible. Most not sociopaths don’t feel good about insulting another person
in person, not to mention there’s a certain danger of getting your ass kicked.
The internet enables someone to act like a monster. Pathetic but unfortunately
wide spread.

