Here’s another thing to consider.

If you always wanted to write, and now you are A Certain Age, and you never got
around to it, and you think it’s too late…do please think again. I watched Julia Glass win the National Book Award
for her first novel, “The Three Junes”, which she began writing in her late 30’s. I listened to her give her moving
acceptance speech, in which she told how she used to lie awake at night, tormented as she worked on her book,
asking herself, “Who do you think you are, trying to write a first novel at your age?” But she wrote it. And as she
held up her National Book Award, she said, “This is for all the late-bloomers in the world.” Writing is not like
dancing or modeling; it’s not something where – if you missed it by age 19 – you’re finished. It’s never too late.
Your writing will only get better as you get older and wiser. If you write something beautiful and important, and
the right person somehow discovers it, they will clear room for you on the bookshelves of the world – at any age.
At least try.
There are heaps of books out there on How To Get Published. Often people find the information in these books
contradictory. My feeling is — of COURSE the information is contradictory. Because, frankly, nobody knows
anything. Nobody can tell you how to succeed at writing (even if they write a book called “How To Succeed At
Writing”) because there is no WAY; there are, instead, many ways. Everyone I know who managed to become a
writer did it differently – sometimes radically differently. Try all the ways, I guess. Becoming a published writer is
sort of like trying to find a cheap apartment in New York City: it’s impossible. And yet…every single day, somebody
manages to find a cheap apartment in New York City. I can’t tell you how to do it. I’m still not even entirely sure
how I did it. I can only tell you – through my own example – that it can be done. I once found a cheap apartment in
Manhattan. And I also became a writer.
In the end, I love this work. I have always loved this work. My suggestion is that you start with the love and then
work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. Please try, also, not to go
totally freaking insane in the process. Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don’t need any more of
that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more
destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave
– they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried
under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way.
As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems:
“Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will
say YES.”