Five years ago, erstwhile I mentioned the thought for my caller Hazel Says No over avocado toast to my present exertion John Glynn, helium said, “I emotion it! And you’ll beryllium a debut!” I practically spit retired my grapefruit juice. I was forty-seven and had already published a memoir. What would beryllium next: debuting astatine seventy arsenic a poet?
Of course, I’m acold from the lone caller novelist to begin, oregon statesman with renewed editorial and scholar enthusiasm, successful her fifties, oregon adjacent later. (Think: Annie Proulx, Penelope Fitzgerald, Sue Monk Kidd. Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, Cynthia Bond, Cynthia Weiner. Jocelyn Nicole Johnson, Delia Owens, Angeline Boulley. Bonnie Garmus, Fran Littlewood, Catherine Newman.)
A fewer months ago, my Brooklyn writer person Cassandra Neyenesch sold her debut novel—at fifty-five!—to Summit Books/Simon & Schuster aft moving connected it for a decade.
Even so. It wasn’t however I’d erstwhile imagined my penning vocation would go.
When I started penning a memoir astatine twenty-nine, and landed an cause a twelvemonth oregon 2 later, I figured I was doing things astatine the “right” time. (Or possibly, laughably, adjacent a spot late? I’d had a antithetic career, and studied for an unrelated postgraduate degree, successful my twenties.)
I was forty-seven and had already published a memoir. What would beryllium next: debuting astatine seventy arsenic a poet?But then, inevitably and thankfully—that aboriginal effort astatine a memoir wasn’t picked up by an editor. The feedback was each implicit the place. The pages were excessively emotional. The pages weren’t affectional enough. I enactment the memoir aside.
Ten years later, I met an exertion who was funny successful a caller mentation of the story, astir however and wherefore I stopped speaking to my parents. I wrote a Kindle Single that became a bestseller. I took meetings and signed with a caller agent. I sold a publication connection for what became my memoir Estranged to Scribner.
But that’s the item reel. My thirties and forties were filled, too, with passes and rejections (from mag and paper editors, from publication editors, from agents), and packed with originative mendacious starts, and the hum of a dilatory burning individuality crisis. There were many, galore times erstwhile I thought I was sunk, erstwhile I was convinced I would ne'er fig my penning beingness out.
When my memoir Estranged was published, it got immoderate bully property and praise, but not truthful overmuch that it changed the signifier of my life. It wasn’t a bestseller. It didn’t apical immoderate year-end lists.
Though I wouldn’t alteration a connection of the book, that clip aft work was, to beryllium honest, a spot deflating. I took a “break” from writing, which meant, successful reality, a descent into post-publication slump and ennui. For a twelvemonth oregon two, I was lost. I’d been mostly freeloading disconnected my husband’s dependable prof salary.
I checked the occupation listings, thought astir going backmost to school. Maybe I could go a librarian? Open a bookstore, oregon get a occupation astatine one?
Or possibly I could try, 1 much time.
Because, arsenic overmuch arsenic I doubted myself, arsenic slim arsenic the accidental of things “working out” felt to my perfectionist self, I was sicker inactive of not writing. Like, not penning made my tummy and caput hurt. I was frustrated, too. I benignant of knew that maybe, conscionable maybe, I could bash it? Or that I had a 2 percent chance? Which was something? Only, I was mode excessively old? At what, forty-seven??
But I was bushed of being comic exclusively successful the kitchen, and to a fewer friends connected text. I watched TV with my past tween lad and would (annoyingly!) spit lines of dialog retired earlier the characters could. You should constitute for TV, helium said.
You should constitute a novel, helium besides said. So did a publishing manufacture friend, and a writer friend. And truthful did the miss successful me. The 1 who sat connected a histrion stump during recess and devoured novels. It was the thing, creatively, I wanted astir to try, but that seemed the riskiest and astir impractical and impossible.
But, also, this: I had an idea, 1 I couldn’t halt reasoning about, 1 I loved, and I decided to constitute it. I wrote a shitty archetypal draft, I wrote a twice-as-long-as-it-needed-to-be 2nd draft, I worked my mode done a 100 revisions. After 2 years, I had a VERY IMPORTANT AGENT interested. I rewrote again, reasoning of her and what she seemed to want, reasoning that she was my 1 and lone accidental for a past large break.
And then, I mislaid the involvement of that VERY IMPORTANT AGENT. After that, I was officially “in the woods.” I considered giving up. Again! For a period oregon two, I woke up each greeting crying. So I recovered a therapist, I went connected HRT, I started taking St John’s Wort, I redoubled my yoga practice. I rewrote my novel. Again.
And then? It (finally) clicked. The story. The characters. The voice! The tone. The years of waiting, of passes, of revision.
What I had to bash was marque the caller I loved. Not to impressment oregon get (or keep) a VERY IMPORTANT AGENT, but to marque the benignant of publication that sounded similar me, the benignant I’d privation to work and thing I wanted to stock with my friends and — possibly 1 day—readers.
I wrote down the jokes I’d archer successful the room connected scale cards. I made a section representation and a chainsaw draught and recovered my characters interior lives and plotted and brainstormed and wrote and rewrote until the code and dependable and connection of the publication was precisely what I wanted it to be.
I made my friends work and reread. Montage of filled wastepaper baskets, of scale cards arranged each implicit my bureau level and walls, of weekends and household vacations wherever I stole disconnected to write, of saying nary to greeting meetings oregon luncheon due to the fact that I had immoderate mysterious enactment but not the benignant of enactment anyone was paying for oregon needed benignant of work.
But I needed it. And then, 4 years aft I started, I was done.
Beyond each the hard work, possibly this was made imaginable by the earned life experience, the years of rejection and passes, the menopausal self-confidence. The propulsion and state of feeling similar it was present oregon never.
As I approached and entered my fifties, successful portion done the weathering and patina of the passes and rejections, the originative (and publishing industry) ups and downs, but mostly, by being a quality successful the satellite for agelong enough, I’d travel to find and recognize the contours of thing precious—my taste. And to find the assurance to judge successful it. And more, by fifty, I knew myself good enough, to enactment my existent and truest aforesaid connected the page.
I utilized to judge that beingness was benignant of benignant of implicit erstwhile you deed fifty. Okay not over, but you were perchance pushing your “sell by” date. It was a small excessively precocious for starting thing marque new.
It’s not that beingness begins astatine fifty. It’s that everything you’ve learned for 50 years is present successful your toolkit arsenic a writer: The language, the empathy, the grit, the humor, the style, the refusal to springiness up, the knowing astir the transportation and the woody and the books lists and the income fertile and the reviews, and the knowing that penning is astir much than that. Writing is astir the process and the leafage and the magic done your fingers. And the people, too.
When I was fifty-one, I sent a long-shot email to my ABSOLUTE DREAM AGENT (because of his iconic lawsuit list, and due to the fact that I conscionable had a feeling) the week aft Thanksgiving, expecting nary response. I heard backmost wrong an hr with a manuscript request.
And past my ABSOLUTE DREAM AGENT started speechmaking the adjacent morning, a Friday—he finished speechmaking that weekend. We talked for an hr and a fractional connected Monday evening, and signed Tuesday morning. My imagination cause sent the caller disconnected to editors connected January 2. John, the exertion person from breakfast, made an connection a week oregon 2 later.
A debut caller (and a publication deal) retired of nowhere. A caller 20 years successful the making. Or marque that fifty.
Here’s what I privation I knew each those years ago. It tin be better to instrumentality decades to get published. Debuting astatine fifty-three is sweet. And I americium truthful incredibly grateful. The imagination I had arsenic a girl—the 1 I couldn’t accidental aloud—not successful my family—has somehow, astonishingly, travel true.
It tin be better to instrumentality decades to get published.When a writer successful her fifties (and yes, I’m seeing this mostly with women writers) posts a euphoric—and seemingly retired of “nowhere” Publishers Lunch woody connected her Instagram, down it (probably) lays decades of rejection, passes, failed attempts, novels successful drawers, self-doubt, and sometimes, astir having fixed up.
And usually? Their books are the ones I extremity up loving the most.
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Hazel Says No by Jessica Berger Gross is disposable via Hanover Square Press.
